


Lullaby

by Zaffie



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Great Tags Today Me, High-Five, I Haven't Written That Far Into This?, I'm No M Night, Let's Find Out Together!, Over Seatbelts And Small Children, So Very Early Canon, Sort Of Canon With Additional Elements, Starts Post Ep 1x03, Take That Into Consideration, There Is A Child OC, There Is Slow Burn, Timeline Schimeline, With A Sort-Of Twist, Wyatt And Lucy Bonding, Yet Another KidFic, i assume, lol not really, timeline change, woohoo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-18 00:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 30,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13088598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaffie/pseuds/Zaffie
Summary: Wyatt's just gotten back from Las Vegas, 1962, and there's someone new in his life. It's not who he expected.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There are a few really good Timeless fics out there with a very similar premise, so hopefully I'm not stepping on anyone's toes.  
> I knew that I wanted to write something for this show, which I love, and wanted to do it before Season 2 (and before the show has a chance to get cancelled without a S3 and break my heart) so I set myself to rewatching S1 and writing this to try and keep it within the bounds of canon. I am not the world's most diligent updater (could it be because I keep starting new fics before the old ones are finished? Pfft, NO) but I'll do my best with this one.  
> Enjoy!

     Lucy is halfway to her mom’s house when her phone buzzes. It’s probably Noah. She’s going to ignore it, but it just keeps going off, vibrating in her back pocket over and over again. If he’s calling this many times in a row, Lucy feels obligated to answer.

     So, against her better judgement, she pulls the car over on the shoulder of the road, parks, and lifts her hips off the seat to reach back and fish the phone out.

     It’s not Noah. It’s not even Agent Christopher, which was the other option Lucy had guessed at.

     No, it’s Wyatt Logan. His name on her phone, his bored, unimpressed face flashing up on the screen. He hadn’t wanted to smile when Lucy asked for a photo, just rolled his eyes and told her that she was being stupid. Lucy can’t help it if she likes to be organised. She takes photos for her phone contacts - it’s just what she does. Matching a face to the name.

     She slides her finger along the screen to answer, puts him on speaker and says, tentatively, “Hello?”

     “Lucy?”

     “Yeah,” she says, and then, irrationally, “Wyatt?” like he might be someone else.

     “It’s me,” he confirms. “Listen, I, ah...” his voice trails off.

     Lucy waits, just in case there’s some reason he’s pausing. Dramatic effect, or maybe someone else is feeding him information, because this has to be about work, right? It’s got to be work. She can’t think of any other reason for Wyatt to call her - when they’ve known each other for less than a week, and she’s pretty sure he doesn’t like her. Not after that last mission to Las Vegas, 1962, when they’d butted heads over and over again.

     He’s still silent. It’s going on a little long now, Lucy thinks.

     “Wyatt?” she prompts.

     “Sorry,” he says. “I’m still here.” He sounds exhausted; drained. Lucy can’t blame him. Not after he’d tried, and come back and found an empty space still where his wife should be.

     She only wishes she could come back and find Noah’s disappeared. The second she has the thought, Lucy hates herself for it, guilt swelling up in her chest. God, how could she wish that on him? On anyone? When she knows how it feels, missing Amy. When she’s seeing firsthand what it’s doing to Wyatt.

     “Are you okay?” she asks, in case that’s why Wyatt is calling. Not for work, but just to talk? To commiserate with one of the only other people who understands?

     “No,” he says, and then he exhales on a shaky breath and says, “Lucy, I… I really need your help.”

 

     He texts her an address, and Lucy plugs it into her phone’s GPS, lets the cool female voice talk her through the twists and turns. Her heart is thumping with anxiety, and she tries to slow her breathing and calm down. It doesn’t work. There’s too much to worry about. Wyatt wouldn’t tell her what he needed help with, but he’d said it was urgent, and not to tell anyone. Not _anyone_.

     All sorts of irrational thoughts chase their way through Lucy’s brain. He’s accidentally brought back some historical artefact - although, she can’t imagine _what._ Or maybe Jessica was alive, but not with Wyatt, and he’s kidnapped her - oh, but he’d been looking at the news articles, Lucy remembers. So his wife is definitely still dead.

     Her mind keeps sticking on what he’d said. He _needs_ her help? And he’d sounded so embarrassed to ask for it, too, and she wonders why he couldn’t ask anyone else. Does he have anyone else? She doesn’t know anything about him beyond Jessica - and he was a soldier, she knows that. Soldiers are supposed to be good in a crisis. Why had Wyatt sounded so close to panic on the phone?

     Lucy parks outside the apartment block when the GPS tells her to. She takes a moment in the car… just sits, and breathes, and wonders why.

     And then she unbuckles her seatbelt and grabs her purse off the front seat and slides out of the car, closing the door firmly behind her.

     It’s still early, and there isn’t anyone else in the parking lot. Lucy hits the buzzer for number 14. Even though there’s a speaker beside the numbers, she doesn’t hear anything. Just the click when the front door unlocks. She pushes it open and makes sure it latches properly behind her before she climbs the stairs.

     Wyatt is leaning on the wall outside his apartment. Arms folded, chin to his chest, one leg bent up with his foot against the wall behind him. He looks tired. Lucy’s tired - it’s been hours since she’d last slept. Way, way too long. She’d gone to a hotel last night, after she'd left Noah. Before she went to see Mom, and the inevitable arguments that would go along with that. Lucy hadn't been able to sleep anyway. She'd just had to lie there, thinking. Worrying. About Amy, mostly, but Noah too. A total stranger in her bed, in her life, who seems to think he _loves_ her? It’s not right. Messing with reality like this. It can’t lead to anything good.

     “Wyatt,” Lucy hisses.

     His head comes up, but he doesn’t smile at her, or even smirk. “You made it.” There are dark circles under his eyes.

    “Yes,” she says, “I did. So now are you going to tell me what this is about?”

     Wyatt looks around, frowning at the number 15 apartment opposite. He mumbles something that Lucy can’t understand.

     “What?”

     “Something’s changed,” he says, quietly. He won’t meet her eyes. “In the timeline.”

     “Jessica?”

     He nods, slowly, and says, “I don’t know what happened.”

     “That telegram you sent,” Lucy says. “It must have been. Right? If she’s still… here.” If Jessica’s still alive, why would Wyatt need Lucy’s help? Her mind jumps back to kidnapping. Oh, she really, _really_ hopes that’s not it.

     “She’s not,” Wyatt says. “It’s not Jess, it’s someone else. Someone _new_.”

     “Your family?” Lucy asks. “Or - do you have another partner? Like Noah?” That might explain why they’re standing out in the hallway right now, instead of going inside his apartment.

     “It’s not a partner,” Wyatt says. “It’s…” he sighs, brings his hand up to cover his eyes and then runs it through his hair. His face is taut; pained. “It’s a kid.”

     Lucy gapes. Her mind whirls and she tries to find something to say, but _seriously_ , what can she say to that? “A kid?”

     “Yeah.”

     “Your kid?”

     “Yeah,” Wyatt says, and then he frowns, a line appearing between his eyebrows. “I mean, I assume it’s my kid. If it’s not, I’m going to have some serious explaining to do.”

     “And - the mother?”

     “No idea,” Wyatt says. “There’s just this _kid_ , and I have no fucking idea what to do.” He finally meets her eyes. “So. Help me?”

     Lucy says, “Oh.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, response to this so far has been totally awesome! This is a great community. Big thanks to everyone who left kudos and comments on a very short first chapter, haha!
> 
> Hope you keep enjoying it :)

_4 Hours Earlier_

     There’s a Dallas Cowboys cap on the front seat of his pickup, and Wyatt doesn’t remember putting it there. The team is right - he’s always barracked for Cowboys. The team colours are right, but the cap itself is white with a navy star. Not Wyatt’s style. And just sitting there on the seat, it looks kind of… small.

     He’s too exhausted to spend long thinking it over. It’s not the longest he’s gone without sleep, or the worst mission he’s ever been on, but he can’t seem to stay awake. He’d nearly fallen asleep at Mason Industries, in the hard chair in front of the laptop he’d used to search Jess.

     That’s the part that makes him feel the most exhausted. It’s the emotional kick in the gut that he gets every time he _time travels._ Because it’s so close, the technology, so close to what he needs. It’s almost magic - it might as well be magic, with how little Wyatt understands about it. But it doesn’t matter where he travels, or _when_. He can’t get her back. He’ll never get her back.

     There’s a white sock patterned with sparkling silver stars beside the cap. A small sock. Like the small cap.

     Timeline change. It’s gotta be. Wyatt doesn’t care anyway. It doesn’t matter what stupid little things change in his life when he knows - he _knows_ \- that Jess isn’t here. That he won’t find her in his bed tonight, gloriously warm under the sheets, her skin soft and her hair smelling like coconut and vanilla.

     He drives slow, windows down in spite of the late night chill in the air. Or early morning chill, really, given that the clock on the dash says that it’s after 2 a.m. now. He slings an arm out of the window and spreads his other hand on the top of the wheel, letting the cold air and the darkness shake him out of Las Vegas. Out of soldier mode, out of the anger which has been dominating him for the past fifteen hours.

     All Wyatt wants is to catch Garcia Flynn and be done with this disaster of a job. He hates it. He _hates_ it, every day, getting into that time machine and coming back to… nothing. The same old shitty life.

     He snatches up the Cowboys cap when he’s pulled into his space in the basement parking lot. Just in case it is his, in this timeline, and he needs it for something. There’s a stuffed animal under the cap. Some sort of a cat, with rainbow fur and black spots. A leopard? A rainbow leopard? It has huge, sparkling pink eyes.

     Wyatt tucks the toy under his arm. He must have given someone a lift to work in this timeline, that’s all. Lucy? Would Lucy carry a stuffed rainbow leopard around with her? Somehow, he doesn’t think so.

     Maybe in this timeline Wyatt’s just a freak who collects plushies. It’s not the worst thing he could imagine, but it’s close. Still, he carries the toy up with him in the elevator, and the cap, and the lone sock. He fumbles with the key in the door and shoves it open with his knee. Right away, he trips over a pair of shoes in front of the door. They’re not his shoes. Sparkling silver Converse sneakers are really not his type - and they wouldn’t fit, anyway. He tries not to wonder why there are tiny shoes in his entryway and kicks them aside, where they slide into a pile of more tiny shoes; purple velcro sneakers, and black ugg boots.

     Wyatt pinches the bridge of his nose with two fingers. He toes off his own shoes. He drops the cap, sock and toy on top of the bureau in the entryway, along with his keys and wallet, in the same old spot as always. Stepping out sideways into his lounge is another challenge, because the TV is in the wrong place and there’s a red blanket patterned with love-hearts on his sofa.

     Whatever’s gone wrong here is something that Wyatt is too tired to dig into tonight. It’s not Jessica. That’s all he knows. That’s all he cares about. His vision is blurring with the need to sleep, and he takes his shirt off as he walks down the hallway. He shucks his pants in his room, and thinks about a shower, but the bed is right there. It’s just too appealing.

     There’s a stuffed toy horse in his bed, which Wyatt discovers beside his pillow. He doesn’t think about that, either, just chucks it off the side of the bed and closes his eyes.

    

_One Hour Earlier_

     Wyatt’s always had that soldier’s ability to sleep no matter what’s going on around him. He can shut down the turmoil in his head and his heart and beat back some of the fatigue that’s holding him down.

     But he wakes up at 6AM, like he always does, and sits bolt upright and stares into the darkness of his bedroom.

     “Oh my god,” he says. A pause. Wyatt blinks and everything he’d ignored floods back into his brain. “Holy shit.”

     He’s wrapped his legs in blankets while he slept, but he kicks them off vigorously, springs out of bed and lurches for the bedroom door. It’s warmer in the house than it usually is; the thermostat, when Wyatt goes to check, is turned way up. There’s that blanket on the couch. More pillows than he remembers. There’s a blue plastic bowl and matching cup in the sink, and a tiny spoon with a teddy-bear on the handle.

     And on his fridge… a picture. A photo inside a magnetic frame. Wyatt walks towards it without meaning to, his face drifting closer and closer until it’s right in front of his nose. And even with the dim light in here cast by the lamp across the street, aided by the glowing digits on the microwave, Wyatt can see that there’s a baby in the picture.

     His heart thumps, and he grips onto the kitchen counter to hold himself up, squeezing painfully until his fingers buckle. This is wrong. Something has gone very, very wrong. He could flip all the switches; he could flood the rooms with light and run from wall to wall, documenting every change, seeking out every picture. But all Wyatt wants to do is leave. Just walk out of the apartment, straight to Mason Industries, and demand they fix it. They have to fix it. He can just get right back in that time machine and-

     -and what? Jesus, Wyatt doesn’t even know what _caused_ this. How could this possibly happen? When Jess is… Jess…

     He blows out a long, long breath. “Okay,” he says to himself, running a hand backwards through his hair. He stops, at the back of his head, and digs his fingernails into his scalp. “Okay,” he says again. Because there must be something he can do. Someone he can call.

     Oh. _Oh_.

     Lucy.

 

 

_Now_

     Lucy’s eyes are wide with shock and her lips are parted but she’s not saying anything. Wyatt wants to shake her; to snap her into action. He needs her to _say_ something. To _tell him_ how this could have happened. How he can make it end.

     He waits, instead. Watches the knowledge filter, slowly, through her face. There’s a kind of horror in her expression and Wyatt thinks that he probably looks the same way. He feels the horror. It’s deep; visceral, this idea that he might have a kid, a kid that he doesn’t know. That he never created. Not his kid. Some sort of an alien; a parasite, stealing his life.

     _God_. He’s really not dealing with this well.

     “Lucy?”

     She blinks. Shakes her head. “Sorry,” she says, “but just… wow.”

     “How do I fix this?”

     “What?”

     “With the-” Wyatt glances around the empty hallway, and lowers his voice a little, “-the _time machine_.”

     “Fix this?”

     “Make it so it never happened. Get rid of the kid.”

     Lucy is staring at him like she’s never seen him before. “I don’t… know.”

     “You have to,” Wyatt says. “You figured out what went wrong with your sister - with Amy. You have to help me figure this out so that I can put it right.”

     She just shakes her head, slowly. “How old is… he? She?”

     “I don’t know,” Wyatt says.

     Lucy frowns. “You don’t know the age?”

     “Or the gender.”

     “Oh.” She stops to think about it. “Have you actually _seen_ the kid?”

     “A photo,” Wyatt says. “On my fridge.”

     Lucy’s whole body relaxes. The tension slips out of her face and she says, “Oh, well in _that_ case.”

     “In what case?”

     “Wyatt,” she says, and she’s even smiling now, “it’s probably not your kid.”

     He hates that smile on her face. “There’s crap all over my apartment. Kid crap.”

     “But there’s no kid?”

     “I don’t know,” Wyatt says. “I haven’t checked in my office.”

     “Why not?”

     “Because it’d be asleep,” Wyatt says. “I didn’t want to wake it up. Then I’d have to - you know. Look after it and shit.”

     Lucy gives him a look which Wyatt interprets to be a comment on all the swearing. He ignores her. It’s not her business, anyway - and it’s not her business if he’s looked in the office or not, or if he’d stood outside the door for a half-hour, palm pressed to the wood, his pulse rapid in his throat.

     “Wyatt,” Lucy says.

     He meets her eyes for a moment and there’s raw emotion there; sympathy that he thinks might actually be pity. He breaks her gaze, stares at his feet instead. “What?”

     “I think that maybe you’re grieving,” she says. “And maybe it’s making you… react a little more strongly to certain things. Like photos.”

     Wyatt wants to laugh in her face. Like he doesn’t know what grief is - like he hasn’t grieved enough times to have it down to a science by now. After Jess, he’d just been numb. Numb for months; for years. He still feels a little numb on the inside. An open wound that no-one can heal.

     “I’m not _grieving_ , Lucy. I’m a fucking father.”

     There’s that look again. That _I’m disappointed in you_ look. Wyatt throws his hands up and turns his back to her. He doesn’t know why he’d thought she’d help. Obviously, the experience with her sister and her new fiancé hasn’t made Lucy an expert on all this. Wyatt’s been fooling himself.

     “Okay,” she says, “I understand how you feel.”

     Yeah, right. “Okay,” Wyatt mumbles.

     “But I just think that-”

     And then, beside him, the apartment door opens.

     Wyatt turns. He stares at the gap in the door - and Lucy stares too - and there’s a little touseled blond head there, just about as high as Wyatt’s hips.

     The child lifts her face up towards him and smiles, sweetly, showing two neat rows of white baby teeth. “Hi, Daddy.”

     Wyatt considers running. Or just flapping his mouth like a fish gasping for air, which is what he seems to be doing already. He swallows, hard. Forces himself to say, “Hi,” and hopes that the kid doesn’t notice his voice shaking. Or Lucy. He doesn’t want her to notice either.

     Fortunately, the kid doesn’t seem to think anything is wrong. She looks over at Lucy next, and says, “Hi!” and then, “Are you coming in?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, either, just slips back into the apartment and leaves the door swinging open.

     Wyatt looks at Lucy. She looks at him.

     “It’s a girl,” he says.

     She grimaces, and whispers, “Sorry.”

     Wyatt nods. “It’s okay. I wouldn’t have believed me either.” Not quite true.

     “She’s so _real_ ,” Lucy murmurs. “And _little_.”

      There’s a sick swooping feeling somewhere in Wyatt’s middle, like turbulence in a plane. Gamely, he pushes open the door to an apartment which doesn’t feel much like his anymore. He says, “Come on in.”


	3. Chapter 3

Stepping into Wyatt’s apartment feels more intimate than Lucy had expected. She isn’t sure if it’s the apartment itself, or the way Wyatt’s hand drops to the small of her back as he ushers her inside.

     Or maybe it’s the little girl sitting on the floor, her knees together and her bare feet pointing outwards to either side. She’s got a short line of toys in front of her, and she leans forward as Lucy watches, adjusting the position of a white teddy bear.

     There’s so much about her to take in. The little pink tongue poking out of the side of her mouth in concentration. The way she uses both hands to push her wild blond hair out of her face.

     Wyatt is frozen in place, just staring. Not moving. Hardly breathing. Lucy pokes his shoulder, and he turns towards her. His face is blank and his eyes hard, like chips of blue marble.

     She hisses, “Introduce me.”

     “Oh,” he says. “Right.” He turns towards the girl. “Hey, uhhhh… kiddo? This is Lucy. My friend from work.”

     There’s a part of Lucy that hates the qualifier _from work_. That just wants to be _friend_. But there’s another part of her that’s just grateful he didn’t say _colleague_ , so she focuses on that part as she steps forward and crouches down.

     “It’s nice to meet you,” she says, smiling. She holds out a hand. “What’s your name?”

     The girl glances up, eyes darting from Lucy to Wyatt and back again. She considers for a brief second before she slips her tiny hand into Lucy’s and shakes enthusiastically. “I’m Marley,” she says. “Do you work at Daddy’s special job? Or at the army?”

     _Marley_. Everything she says just makes her more real. This is impossible. This is _insane_. Still, Lucy fights to keep the smile on her face as she says, “The special job. It’s very nice to meet you, Marley. How old are you?”

     “Four,” Marley says. “How old are you?”

     “Thirty-three.”

     “Oh. That’s old.”

     “A little,” Lucy agrees.

     “Same as Daddy,” Marley adds.

     Lucy turns to look at Wyatt over her shoulder and he shrugs, one corner of his mouth tipping up slightly. He still looks like he’s seen a ghost.

     She doesn’t want Marley to notice. Lucy isn’t even sure where the thought comes from, but it’s sudden and very, very strong. She doesn’t want this little girl to wonder why her father is pale and shaky and won’t speak to her.

     “What are you doing here?” Lucy asks, gesturing to all of the toys set out. She drops onto her knees from the crouch, and sinks back on her haunches. Getting comfortable.

     Sure enough, Marley launches into an explanation that is long, complicated, and hard to follow. Lucy smiles, and nods, and says, “Uh huh,” or “Wow,” when there’s a pause for breath. And Wyatt just keeps standing there. Staring.

     He doesn’t move until Marley breaks off her description to address him directly. She turns, and beams, and says, “Daddy, you found Dotty!”

     Wyatt startles, like someone coming awake, and blinks. “Huh?”

     Marley lifts an authoritative hand and points. “Can you get her for me? I can’t reach.”

     “I don’t-” Wyatt starts to say, and then he turns, and spots something that Lucy can’t see from this angle. He reaches to the top of the bureau and pulls down a rainbow-coloured toy.

     “Where was she?” Marley asks, holding out her other hand as well. When Wyatt delivers the toy to the little girl she wriggles with happiness, clutching the spotty animal to her chest.

     “Just, uh, in the car,” Wyatt says. “With the - the Cowboys gear.” He watches the girl closely. “Did we take it to the game?”

     “Yeah!” Marley exclaims. “Dotty came to watch with us, remember? When we beat the Niners, Daddy!”

     That startles a laugh out of Lucy. Wyatt looks at her and she shakes her head, swallowing her smile.

     “What?” he asks anyway.

     “…I’m a Niners fan,” Lucy admits.

     Marley’s mouth drops open. “Oh _no_.”

     “Sorry,” Lucy says, still chuckling. “My dad was a big fan, and he got me into it.”

     The thought hurts her heart a little, because, of course, he wasn’t her dad. Not really. Amy’s dad, but not hers. She wonders if he knew. Surely he knew. But he never gave any sign… he never played favourites with Lucy and Amy. He was always there for her. Maybe he hadn’t known after all.

     Lucy isn’t sure which one hurts worse.

     “Daddy says we can’t be friends with Niners fans,” Marley says.

     “I think that’s probably a joke.”

     “Oh.” Marley turns towards Wyatt for confirmation. “Was it a joke?”

     Wyatt looks like he has more things than football on his mind. “Yeah,” he says, hastily. “Yeah, it was a joke. I’ll be right back.”

     Lucy watches him walk down the hallway, taking a turn into what she assumes is a bedroom. He shuts the door behind him.

     Marley frowns. “Is Daddy mad?”

     “No, sweetie.”

     “Was it a hard day at work?”

     “Yes,” Lucy says. “Very hard.”

     Marley nods, accepting the answer easily. “Okay.”

     Lucy wants to ask more - about the girl’s mother, about her life. She wants to ask everything, but she doesn’t want to scare Marley. It’s easy to look at the aftereffects from time travel analytically when it’s just history that’s been changed. Reading words on a screen telling her that Lincoln’s assassination will never be the same - that’s one thing. But this? This is a child. A _person_. There’s suddenly so much more at stake.

     She settles for something simple. “So, what did you do yesterday, Marley?”

     “Um, I just went to school.”

     “Yeah? Are you in Kindergarten?”

     “Not yet,” Marley says, “but soon. Daddy promised. But right now I am in Pre-K, which stands for Pre-Kindergarten. That means _before_ Kindergarten.”

     “Oh,” Lucy says, “right. Was school fun?”

     “Yeah, it was fun.”

     “What did you do afterwards?”

     “Jackie picked me up, of course,” Marley says impatiently. “Jackie always picks me up when Daddy has to work his special job. Because he never knows when he’ll be back.”

     “That’s true,” Lucy says. “Who’s Jackie?”

     Marley shrugs, losing interest in the conversation. “She put me to bed and then went home, because Daddy is almost always back by morning times.” The girl leans forward, setting the rainbow cat down with the rest of her toys.

     “Dotty,” Lucy remembers. “That’s a cool name. Did you pick it?”

     “Nope. It’s just her name. Look.” Marley grabs Dotty again, and opens the tag dangling from the animal’s ear. “See? It says Dotty. And her birthday, that’s June sixteenth.”

     It’s an easy enough segue into the next question Lucy has. “When’s your birthday?”

     But Marley’s distracted now, and she says instead, “Dotty is a Beanie Boo. I’ve got three more. You wanna see?”

     Lucy hesitates. “Yes?” she says after a moment, uncertainly.

     Marley scrambles to her feet. “Okay! I’ll go get them.” She runs from the room, the dark pink hem of her nightdress swirling around her knees.

     The door where Wyatt had disappeared is still closed. Lucy looks at it, tensing her thighs, half-preparing to get up from where she’s kneeling on the floor and go to him.

     She doesn’t. Partly because she doesn’t think Wyatt would appreciate it. Mostly because Marley comes charging back in and drops a load of colourful toys in Lucy’s lap. White unicorn, black dragon, blue owl.

     “That’s Pegasus, and Anora, and Oscar. You wanna know their birthdays?” Marley is already reaching for the tags. “It’s June and August and November. None the same as me.”

     Maybe she had been listening earlier. “When’s your birthday?” Lucy asks again.

     Marley grins. “Halloween. It’s such a spooooky birthday.”

    “Oh, that is spooky,” Lucy says quickly, forcing a smile. “Are you going to turn five?”

     “Um, yeah.”

     Lucy does the maths. Counts months and years in her head, and brings it back to January or February. Early 2011. That’s when it changed, whatever it was. That’s when Marley started.

     “Are you going to keep playing here?” Lucy asks. “I’m just going to talk to Wyatt.” She hesitates. “To your dad.”

     “Yeah, okay.” Marley reaches forward to pull the toys off Lucy’s lap, her hands scraping down Lucy’s legs with no sense of personal space. “Are you staying for breakfast?”

     “I don’t know.”

     “I’m very hungry.”

     “I’ll let him know,” Lucy says, and she stands up and wipes her suddenly sweaty palms on her jeans and hurries down the hallway.

     She hesitates. Outside the door, she stops, and her hand hovers above the handle, and she can’t bring herself to break down that last boundary. She hardly even _knows_ the man. It’s his _bedroom_.

     It doesn’t matter anyway, because the door swings open and Wyatt stares out at her, and then he steps back and says, “Come in.”

     “Er,” Lucy says, stepping gingerly around him, folding her hands in front of her and twisting her fingers together. “Marley says she’s hungry.”

     “Oh,” Wyatt says, a crease forming between his eyebrows. “I didn’t think of that. Jesus, I have to feed her. What do they eat? Kids?”

     “The same as us, I expect.”

     “Sorry I left you with her,” Wyatt says, waving a hand out of the door. “I just needed a minute.”

     Lucy says, “I know,” as gently as she can. “I understand.”

     Wyatt nods. “Yeah.”

     “She’s four years old,” Lucy says, “but she’ll be five at the end of the month. I make that out to be early twenty-eleven.”

     “January,” Wyatt says.

     “Or February.”

     “I can’t think of anything around then. I - I was still with Jess, we were… we were happy, but we didn’t want kids.” He pauses, and his frown deepens. “She wanted kids. I wanted to wait. She kept trying to talk me into it, but I…” he trails off, closes his mouth and stares at the floor.

     Awkwardly, Lucy glances around the room. It’s fairly sparse; bed, bureau, door that she supposes leads into an ensuite. There’s a clothes horse in one corner, strewn with t-shirts and boxers and child’s clothing, too, small and brightly coloured.

     “The telegram you sent,” she says. “When did you send it to?”

     “February. Two-thousand-twelve. The day Jess died.” Wyatt shakes his head, says, “It didn’t work, I checked. She still died on the same day.”

     There’s an idea at the edges of Lucy’s mind. She waits for it to come closer. “When in February?”

     “The eleventh. That was when she died.”

     “February eleventh,” Lucy murmurs. The idea solidifies in her mind. “Zero-two-one-one.”

     “What?”

     “The date. When you write it, you get zero-two-one-one.”

     “Yeah, and?”

     “Marley was conceived in twenty-eleven,” Lucy says. “Two-zero-one-one.” She shrugs. “I don’t know, Wyatt, it just seems awfully close to me.”

     “You think they delivered the telegram to the wrong time?”

     “Uh huh.”

     “And somehow that… what? Gave me a kid?”

     “I don’t know,” Lucy says. “Maybe it changed your mind. Made you think about things a different way.”

     “You think… me and Jess?”

     “I don’t know, Wyatt.”

     He runs his hand backwards through his hair, making it stand on end. “She looks a little like Jess. Maybe. I’m not sure.”

     “She said someone called Jackie picked her up last night,” Lucy adds, suddenly remembering. “Does that sound familiar?”

     “Jess had a sister,” Wyatt says. “Jacqueline. That could be it. But she didn’t live in San Francisco.”

     “That wouldn’t be the biggest change of the day,” Lucy says.

     Wyatt blows out an unsteady breath and takes a step back. He drops down to sit on the end of the bed. Springs creak beneath him.

      “What,” he asks, “do I do now?”

     Lucy takes a moment. Considers it. And there’s a lot to consider - a _lot_ \- but she can’t get around the reality that, no matter what happened in the past, the child is here _now._ She’s here, she exists, and there’s no guarantee that she’ll be going away any time soon. And if that's the case, then Wyatt can't keep relying on Lucy to be his guide. He can't use her as an emotional crutch. 

     She takes a step away from Wyatt, creating that psychological distance, and then she reaches for the bedroom door and pulls it open. “I think you’d better cook breakfast.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted to try and connect all the dots as far as timeline changes go, so hopefully this one makes some sense and lines up with canon fairly reasonably.


	4. Chapter 4

Wyatt cooks on autopilot. He keeps sneaking glances over his shoulder at the kid. _Marley_. He can’t say that he’s ever thought about the name before, but it sounds all right. Kinda nice. Lucy sits at the table beside the kid, and Marley talks and talks and _talks_. Wyatt isn’t even listening, and he’s exhausted. He doesn’t know how Lucy keeps sitting there, with that look of polite interest on her face. She even manages to ask questions, sometimes, and they must be the right ones, because Marley beams at her.

     He really doesn’t want Lucy to leave after breakfast. He can’t be left alone with this kid.

     The eggs are fried and dished out onto plates sunny-side up, and the bacon is sizzling and nearly done when Wyatt hears the very distinctive sound of a key in his door. He whirls straight away, bringing the hot pan with him.

     There’s a gasp, and Lucy shrieks, “Marley!” and she’s hurtling forward out of her seat, grabbing the kid by the shoulders and tugging her backwards. Wyatt fumbles the pan, almost drops it, catches it with one hand under the hot base and juggles it instantly onto the countertop.

     He hisses, pulling his burnt palm in close to his chest. Lucy is sprawled on her butt on the ground, clutching Marley to _her_ chest. Wyatt ducks down in front of them. “Are you both okay?” he asks.

     Lucy brushes hair back from her face and looks down at Marley. “Sweetie, are you hurt?”

     Marley chews on her lips and shakes her head.

     “You’re sure?” Wyatt checks. He runs his good hand over her hair and down her cheek. Shit. Stupid of him. He hadn’t heard her come up behind him - hadn’t heard her little bare feet. He could have hit her in the face with that pan.

     “Sorry, Daddy,” Marley whispers, and she reaches out for his bad hand, his burnt hand. Wyatt pulls it back automatically and tries not to see the hurt flash across the kid’s face.

     There’s a clatter of keys on the table and an almost heart-wrenchingly familiar voice says, “Wyatt, are you okay?”

     He twists his torso to look up at her. She looks like Jess, with the light from the kitchen window making a halo around her head. They’d always had the same face-shape, the same voice, the same laugh.

     Jackie is younger. She has red hair and freckled skin and a gap between her front teeth. She and Wyatt have never gotten on - in fact, the worst eight months of his married life came when Jackie moved in right before their first anniversary.

     “I’m fine,” he says, using the kitchen counter to lever himself back up to his feet. He steps towards the sink and flips the cold tap on full, gritting his teeth before he thrusts his hand under the faucet.

     “I was just checking in to make sure everything went okay last night,” Jackie says. “When did you get home?”

     “After midnight,” Wyatt says, his attention still on holding his hand under the water and not yelling with the pain. The burn is already a shiny bright red mark on the fleshy pad under his thumb.

     Jackie bends down towards Marley, says, “Hi, gorgeous,” and then turns her attention to Lucy. “I don’t think we’ve met?” Her voice has cooled considerably.

     “I-I’m Lucy,” Lucy stammers. Wyatt turns to look at her, and she gives him a look which screams _help!_

     She has no idea who Jackie is, he realises suddenly. “Thanks for looking after Marley last night, Jackie,” he says, hoping that’s enough to clue Lucy in.

     “You know I love spending time with her.” Jackie is smiling at Marley, holding out her arms for a hug. Marley gets up and goes to her, slow and subdued. “It’s okay,” Jackie tells her, “Daddy’s just silly. He’ll be more careful next time.”

     That gets on Wyatt’s nerves. Everything Jackie says gets on his nerves. He looks back at the stream of water.

     Fortunately, Jackie says, “I’d better go, I’ve got work. Text me if you need another pick-up tonight, Wyatt. Bye, gorgeous.” She kisses Marley on both cheeks, taps a hand against Wyatt’s shoulder in a gesture that he thinks is meant to be friendly, grabs her keys from the kitchen table and sweeps towards the door. Right before she gets there, she calls, “Nice to meet you, Lucy!”

     “Uh, yeah!” Lucy calls back, but the front door is already closing.

     Wyatt sighs. “So that was Jackie.”

     “Right.” Lucy gets up from the floor, too, and she has the presence of mind to tip the bacon out of the still-hot pan and onto a plate. “I don’t think she liked me.”

     “She says Daddy shouldn’t bring ladies home,” Marley pipes up.

     Geez, Wyatt had forgotten that the kid would be listening. And understanding, which is worse. He tries to remember if he’d sworn when he dropped the pan. He doesn’t think so. 

It seems like Lucy's forgotten the kid can understand, too, because she goes all stiff and tense and then turns to put the bacon on the table and says, with false cheer, “You want some bacon, Marley?”

     “Yeah,” Marley says. “Daddy, your hand?”

     “It’s fine.”

     “Okay.” She comes closer to him, rubbing her head against his hip like a cat, twining her arms around his middle for a hug. Wyatt tries not to stand too uncomfortably. He thinks about dropping his good hand to… pat her back? Or her head? Obviously he spends too long waiting, though, because Marley steps away looking disappointed.

     Somehow, Wyatt doesn’t think he’s doing a good job so far.

 

     Marley skips off into the bathroom after breakfast, which seems to be something she can handle by herself - god, Wyatt hopes so. He corners Lucy in the kitchen.

     “You gotta stay,” he says.

     “Wyatt, I can’t. I have to get back to my mom’s place - I’ve got stuff to drop off there, and a conversation to have about why I’m leaving my fiancé, which _isn’t_ something I’m looking forward to, and-”

     He cuts her off. “Please.” It sounds so close to begging, but Wyatt can’t think of any other way to get his desperation across. Except, he adds, “I’m desperate,” and that’ll probably do it.

     “There’s nothing I can do!”

     “But you’re good with her,” Wyatt says. “You know how to talk to her. She likes you. You understand kids.”

     “I don’t - not really.”

     “More than me.”

     Lucy sighs. “I was seven when Amy was born. I remember a lot. And some of my friends have kids. But kids are easy, Wyatt. All you have to do is listen to her. Take her seriously.”

     “How can I take her seriously? She’s five! And she’s not even supposed to _exist_ , for crying out loud!”

     Lucy presses her lips together into a thin line and fixes him with those dark eyes. “I don’t think this is something that’s just going to go away.”

     “So?”

     “You’ll have to learn to talk to her sooner or later.”

     Wyatt doesn’t think that. He’s pretty sure that if he can just get back in that infernal machine, whatever time they go back to, this situation will resolve itself. He’ll come back and everything will be the way it was. That’s the simplest option - that makes sense. For once, he can’t wait to get a call about Garcia Flynn.

     “At least help me get her dressed,” Wyatt says. “I don’t know how to do that.”

     Lucy stares at him. “You know how to put clothes on a child.”

     “Not a little girl! It’s… I don’t know… inappropriate or something.”

     “She’s _your_ little girl! How is that inappropriate?”

     “I barely know the kid!”

     “Right,” Lucy says, “but I’m _actually_ a stranger to her. It doesn’t matter what you know, Wyatt. She’s known you her whole life. She only met me today. You tell me who she’d be more comfortable with.”

     Wyatt starts, “I _can’t-_ ” but it doesn’t matter anyway, because Marley comes out of the bathroom shaking water off her hands.

     “Daddy,” she says, “is Lucy going to come to the park with us?”

     “Uh,” Wyatt says.

     “I don’t think so,” Lucy says.

     Marley pouts. She’s got a very good pout, sticking out a fat lower lip and making her chin wobble. “Please?”

     “We’ll see,” Wyatt says. “You’d better get dressed.”

     “Okay.” She holds out her hand towards him. “Come help me.”

     Wyatt resists. “Can’t you get dressed by yourself? You’re a big girl, right? You’re five?”

     Marley stares at him, huge, round blue eyes.  “Daddy, I’m _four_.”

     “Right,” he says, quickly. “Just rounding up.”

     “Don’t do rounding up! I hate it!”

     “Okay, okay.”

     “I hate it!” She turns away from him and crosses her arms over her chest.

     Wyatt stares at Lucy. Lucy widens her eyes at him, tips her head towards the kid. Wyatt sighs. He inches closer to Marley, and puts a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Marley, I’m sorry.”

     She shrugs her shoulders, up and down. “Okay.”

     “Let’s get you dressed,” he says, “and then we’ll go to a park. Okay? Whatever park you want.”

     That perks her up a little. “Yeah,” she says, “and take my _kite_ , Daddy! Can we?”

     “Um,” he says. Turns to look at Lucy over his shoulder. She rolls her eyes at him, and nods, very pointedly. Wyatt says, “Yeah, sure, your kite,” and ushers Marley into the bedroom.

     It’s easier than he’d thought. She picks out the clothes she likes; a blue t-shirt with the Superman symbol, a crazy pair of zigzag patterned black-and-white leggings, pink underwear and socks. All Wyatt has to do is help her wiggle in and out of them. He holds the leggings for her to step in, helps slide them up her legs, then pops the t-shirt over her outstretched arms and head.

     Marley giggles when her head comes through, messy hair floating like a cloud around her face. “Remember, Daddy, I’m duck?”

     He has no idea what she means. “Yeah. Uh, nice Superman shirt.”

     The laughter slides off Marley’s face so quickly he’s not sure it had ever been there. Her mouth turns down and her lower lip wobbles and even though Wyatt swears she’s doing this on purpose, he thinks he can see actual tears glimmering in her eyes. Jesus. Can kids cry on command?

     “Super _girl_ , Daddy,” she whispers.

     Obviously this is important. Wyatt fights the feeling that he’s just fucked up beyond repair. She’s five, right? No, four. She won’t remember crap like this. Not that it matters, anyway, when the kid won’t be here after his next time jump.

     “Sorry, Marley,” he says. “I meant Supergirl.”

     She sniffles and turns away from him. Okay, so this one isn’t so easily apologised for. Wyatt rolls his eyes and rises to his feet. Lucy will probably cheer the kid up.

     Except, when he steps out of Marley’s bedroom, Lucy is gone. Totally gone, because he spins a quick 360 and then pokes his head into his room, and she’s nowhere. The bathroom door at the end of the hall is wide open, so that’s a dead end too.

     Wyatt groans. Great.

     He’d left his phone charging on his end table, so he heads back into his room to grab that. He sits on the bed heavily and reaches for the phone. There’s a photo on the end table. A framed one. It’s new, and Wyatt doesn’t know why he’s never seen it before. He frowns, and leans in closer.

     It’s a baby. Marley, he assumes, and there’s a woman holding her. Side-on to the camera, with her dirty blond hair braided back, and green studs in her ears, and her lips pressed to the baby’s cheek in a kiss. Jess. Even with half of her face obscured by the baby, even with studs instead of the golden hoops Wyatt is used to seeing her with, he knows her. Intimately. Everything about her. He knows that white shirt she’s wearing, the straight line of her nose and the high arches of her eyebrows and the way she’s got her eyes half-closed as she kisses the baby. Like a smile, but without her mouth. Her eyes always smiled. Wyatt can remember it so clearly.

     He reaches out and flips the picture face-down on the end table. Why would the Wyatt of this timeline even keep that here? To remember everything he’s lost? The perfect life he’ll never get back? Blankly, Wyatt looks down at his phone. There’s a text from Lucy, which he’d expected, because she’s not the type to just cut and run. She’s too polite for that. He’d meant to read what she’d sent, and maybe send an angry reply demanding to know why she’d left him with this _kid_ when he’d asked for her _help_ -

     The photo of Jess has gotten Wyatt all bent out of shape. Especially seeing her with the baby. Loving the baby. She would have been like that with their child.

     Well. This is their child. Sort of.

     Wyatt sighs and presses his hands down on his knees as he stands. “Marley,” he calls. No answer. She’s sulking somewhere. “Where are you?” He’s not surprised when that one doesn’t work.

     Okay, so it’s like hide-and-seek. But not the fun kind. Wyatt slips his phone into his pocket and gets down to business.

     Marley’s not in his room. She’s not in the kitchen, or the bathroom, or the lounge, or the linen closet. The hiding places in his apartment are actually seriously limited, now that Wyatt thinks about it. She’s not in the cupboard under the sink, and she’s not hiding behind any doors.

     He steps into her room and goes down on his hands and knees, then reaches out to lift the trailing bedcovers.

     Yeah, she’s under the bed. Good call, Wyatt. He wishes he hadn’t walked around the rest of the house first. He also wishes she hadn’t wriggled so far back, pressed against the wall on the far side of the bed. It’s almost impossible for Wyatt to reach in and drag her out. His arms are long, but not that long. He has to stretch half of his body under the bed instead, and then Marley screams and kicks when he touches her.

     Wyatt jerks up and bangs his head on the underside of the bed. “Fuck,” he says.

     Marley twists to look at him with big eyes. “Did you just say the F-word?”

     “No,” Wyatt says. “Can you come on out?”

     She shakes her head. “Uh-uh.” Tears well up in her eyes again. Sheesh, she’s definitely doing this on purpose.

     “I’m really, really sorry I said Superman instead of Supergirl, okay? It was just a mistake.”

     Marley hunches further away from him. Okay, so she doesn’t want to be apologised to. Fine. Whatever. Wyatt rolls his eyes, because his head hurts, and it’s dusty under this damn bed. Why the fuck is he wasting his time trying to talk the kid out of here anyway? If she’s under the bed she’s not getting into trouble playing with sharp objects or - or sticking forks into electric sockets, or whatever the hell kids do.

     He backs out and sits on his heels, looking around Marley’s room. And there’s Jess again.

     She’s still not looking at the camera. Her face is turned towards the baby, but this time Wyatt can see the side of her smile, the long pale sweep of her hair over one shoulder. Half of the photo is taken up with the Christmas tree, close enough to be out of focus, dark branches and bright lights. The lights play over their faces, too - Jess and the baby - and they’re both wearing red. Jess has a Santa hat. The baby, Marley, is so small.

     She’d been born in October 2011, Lucy had said. And Jess had died in February of 2012. How much time did they really have together, mother and child? How long has the Wyatt of this timeline been doing it alone?

     He almost feels like he owes it to Jess to crawl back under there. Try and talk the kid out of her tantrum. Take her to a park or whatever. But Wyatt doesn’t have the energy. He’s exhausted. He’s emotionally drained. This isn’t even his kid, for chrissakes. He gets to his feet and walks out of the room, throws himself down on the couch and turns on the TV. He flips through channels until he finds a soccer game, and then he thumbs the volume right up.

     It’s so loud that Wyatt doesn’t hear his phone. He feels it buzzing, though, against his leg, and he swipes it out of his pocket and answers without looking and says, “Yeah, what?”

     He’s sort of half-heartedly expecting it to be Lucy. Instead, the woman on the other end has a hint of an accent - something Eastern-European, Wyatt thinks - and she asks uncertainly, “Mister Logan?”

     “That’s me,” Wyatt says.

     “Ah, okay, sorry. You sounded… different.” There’s a hesitation. “Is this a good time?”

     He’s still got the TV blaring in the background, Wyatt realises. He hits mute and says, “Sorry, go ahead.”

     “We were just wondering if Marley was going to be coming in today,” the woman says. “Is she sick?”

     “What?” Wyatt glances at his watch. It’s twenty past nine, and - oh _shit_ , today is a Friday. He’d forgotten. The stupid time travel had put him all out of whack, but don’t kids have school on Fridays? “Right,” he says, hastily. “Oh, right, okay. Sorry, we were just… um, just running a bit late.”

     “That’s fine,” the woman says. She gives a polite little laugh, and adds, “Just wanted to check in, sorry to bother you. We’ll see you soon?”

     “Yeah,” Wyatt says. “Yeah, definitely.” He has no idea where the fuck this school is. Is it Kindergarten? “Um, would it be okay if you guys, uh…” what? Tell me what school my child goes to? “…just send me the... map? So I can send it to my… friend? She might be picking Marley up soon?”

     “Of course, Mister Logan. Just make sure you remember to put your friend’s name down on the approved list, as well. Is it this afternoon that she’ll be picking Marley up?”

     “Uhh,” he says, and hates how stupid he sounds. God, she must think he’s an idiot. “I’m not sure yet. I’ll put her on the list though. Don’t worry.”

     “Okay, great. See you later.”

     “Yeah,” Wyatt says. “Bye, uh…” he doesn’t know this woman’s name, “…uh, bye.”

     He hits the red button and ends the call and then drops his head into his hands. This is not going well. This is so far from going well.

     Wyatt turns the TV off. “Okay, kiddo!” he yells out. “You’d better come out, because it’s time to go to Kindergarten!”

     There’s a wail from somewhere in the vicinity of Marley’s room, and a little voice says, “ _Pre_ -Kindergarten, Daddy! You know it’s _Pre-Kindergarten!_ ”

     Wyatt drags a hand down his face and groans. Fuck.


	5. Chapter 5

Lucy’s exhausted by the time she gets back home. She feels a little bad for leaving Wyatt, but ‘daughter-from-an-alternate-timeline’ turns out to be one of those out of sight, out of mind things. It’s easy to forget about Wyatt’s problems when Lucy’s got dramas of her own.

     Mostly Mom. They fight when she arrives, which Lucy had expected. It goes for longer than usual. She’d forgotten how intense Mom can be at full strength. Briefly, Lucy wonders how she coped in this timeline as an only child. Imagining all that attention focused squarely on her makes her shudder.

     Then Mom calls Noah, which is a pain, because Lucy has to listen to him blurting apologies for imagined slights down the phone. And she can’t explain - she can’t possibly - why she’s so cold, and distant, and uncomfortable with both of them.

     By the time she’s finally allowed to go upstairs to her room and Mom leaves her alone, Lucy’s too wound up to sleep. She’s exhausted, but she flops onto the bed in her clothes and lies there for an hour with everything rolling around in her mind. Everything she hasn’t quite had a chance to process over the past week. Time travel. Amy. _Time travel_.

     Eventually she digs a book out from her bag and starts reading and of course that’s when she finally falls asleep.

 

     When Lucy wakes up there’s a page plastered to her face and her phone is ringing. She grabs it, blearily. Puts it to her ear. Says, “Hello?”

     It keeps ringing. She’s forgotten to answer. She squints at the bright screen, thinks she makes out Wyatt’s photo. “Hello?”

     “Lucy?”

     “Yeah?” she says. “Are you okay?” She struggles to sit up, brushing wisps of hair back from her eyes and rubbing drool from her cheek. She feels slow, and thick, and stupid, like everything’s underwater or wrapped in cotton wool. Sleeping in the middle of the day in her clothes isn’t something Lucy does. Ever.

     “Did I wake you up?” Wyatt asks.

     “Uh huh.”

     “Damn, sorry.”

     Lucy yawns hugely against the phone, covering her mouth even though Wyatt can’t see her. “Is it Mason Industries?”

     “No,” he says. “Just… Marley.”

     Oh. _Oh_. Lucy snaps to attention, sitting up straighter. “Is she - did something happen?”

     “She’s still here,” Wyatt says, which wasn’t really what Lucy was asking. “But I don’t really know how to - well, how to do anything, really. I was hoping you might be able to come help again. Please.”

     The please almost tips her over, but Lucy is so exhausted. Her mind is foggy and blank. “I’m sorry,” she says. “But I’m too tired to drive, and I don’t think asking Mom is a good idea right now.”

     “You’re at her place?”

     “Yeah,” Lucy says, yawning again. “Couldn’t stay with Noah. Look, Wyatt, maybe call Jackie? I’m sure she’ll help.”

     “I’m sure,” Wyatt repeats. He doesn’t sound happy about it.

     “Call me tomorrow,” Lucy says. “Night.”

     She hangs up, her eyes flitting over the time on the phone. 7pm. That’s close enough to bedtime, Lucy thinks.

     The phone buzzes again on the nightstand while she’s stumbling around the room, throwing on pyjamas. Her hair is a hopeless mess and she combs her fingers through it, glad that it’s still so short. Genius decision.

     She checks her phone while she brushes her teeth. It’s just a lengthy - oh, god, so long - text from Noah. Lucy isn’t sure why, but she gets a vague sense of disappointment from it. Like maybe she was expecting it to be from Wyatt. Which is stupid, because he doesn’t owe her any texts. Not after she hung up on him like that.

     Lucy downs two glasses of water and then plugs her phone into the charger in the bathroom. She steps back into her bedroom, draws the curtains, and topples into bed with an exhausted, relieved sigh. The sheets are cool against her skin, the mattress is soft and the quilt is puffy and she pushes her feet right down to the end of the bed and closes her eyes.

 

     It’s a restless night, and Lucy gets up for good just before 6:30am. She throws the curtains wide and stares out into darkness. The sun won’t rise for almost an hour, but Lucy’s awake. Properly awake, and there’s energy thrumming in her veins, and she wants to do something.

     And also get out of the house. Avoid Mom for as long as she can.

     She dresses quietly in her dark room, leggings and sneakers and a red hoodie over a long-sleeved top. Lucy doesn’t mind the cold, not much. She prefers winter to summer. It’s something that Amy was always arguing about with her. Amy was a summer baby through and through. It was all about the sunglasses and the spaghetti straps and the tanning with her.

     Thinking _was_ hurts. Lucy creeps downstairs and takes a banana and a chocolate bar from the kitchen before she leaves the house. She eats slowly while she walks, warming up. Gradually she pulls into a loping, steady jog, and then increases the pace, bit-by-bit.

     She used to run all the time. Especially when she was studying - she’d run late at night, and Mom would always warn her about muggers and kidnappers and god knows what else. But it’s not a bad neighbourhood, and Lucy knows the streets.

     When Mom got sick is when she stopped, she thinks. And it’s funny, because that’s when she needed the time to herself most. She wanted time to think, to process, and to grieve. But being alone felt wrong, when Mom was sick. Being with Amy felt right. Sitting on the couch, legs curled up and pretzeled together, the two of them leaning over to read from each other’s phone screens, or Lucy telling a story about work and Amy laughing, her face bright and happy.

     Lucy's feet slap against the pavement and it’s a solid, satisfying sound. The locket bounces on her chest and that’s solid, too. It’s real.

     By the time she gets home she’s panting and her legs are burning with lactic acid. She slumps over at the front door, bent double to try and ease out the stitch that she’s got. Wow, she’d lost fitness fast. And with this job, fitness should probably be a priority. They’ve been out three times and every trip has been more dangerous than the last.

     Lucy steps inside and Mom is there straight away.

     “Where were you?”

     “I went for a run.”

     “Without telling me?”

     “It was just a run,” Lucy protests.

     “Lucy, I’m worried about you,” Mom says, and there’s that anxious-parent look on her face, the one which always makes Lucy feel guilty and irritated at the same time.

     “I’m fine,” she says, as gently as she can. “I’m going to go and have a shower. Okay?”

    

     There’s so much to do at home - unpacking her suitcase and refamiliarising herself with a room which has changed seemingly overnight - and then finding out that the rest of the house has changed, too. Lucy doesn’t realise that Wyatt hasn’t contacted her until after 1pm.

     She calls him, but there’s no answer, so she texts as well.

     _Everything okay?_

     He doesn’t reply to that, either, and Lucy gradually stops checking her phone as she drifts back into learning the ropes of her new-old life.

     She’s a little bemused, though, that evening, when there’s still no answer from Wyatt. Briefly, she wonders if he might be at Mason Industries - the cell reception there is always terrible - but no, surely not. They wouldn’t call Wyatt in without her. Would they? Lucy wants to text Rufus and check, but she doesn’t have his number. It seems stupid, but when she thinks about it, they’ve only known each other for a few days. It’s been less than a week, all of it. She’d first been called in on Monday - or, well, early Tuesday morning, really. And today is Saturday.

     Still, Lucy resolves to get Rufus’ number when she sees him next. And she sends another text to Wyatt before she sleeps.

     _Was Marley all right today?_

    

     It feels kind of strange, now, to go almost two full days without a call from Mason Industries. Lucy runs again on Sunday morning. Wisps of hair keep escaping from her braid and blowing into her eyes, and she brushes them back impatiently. She’s not as early this morning, and there are a handful of other people on the streets. Lucy watches them and wonders what they’re doing. What’s happening in their lives?

     At any moment, Garcia Flynn could set off a nuclear bomb _in the past_ and these people would just… what? Vanish? Their atoms coming apart and blowing away like dandelion seeds? How does it happen? Do they feel it?

     Lucy hopes not. The anxiety makes her restless, and she wants to do something productive, so she digs out the history books when she gets home and leafs through them. Page after page after page, names and dates and events that she’s studied so intently that they hardly seem real anymore. More like a scene from a movie that she’s watched one too many times.

     Lincoln’s blood on her dress, on her face, that was real. That’s what sticks in Lucy’s head while she reads.

     She’s eating a bowl of cereal with books spread out on the table in front of her when she gets a text. It takes her a little while to drag her eyes away from the pages for long enough to look at it.

     It’s from Wyatt.

     _Really sorry about last night and everything I said. Let me make it up to you? Come over for lunch?_

     She’s being invited over for lunch now? Lucy gapes at the message. She was fairly sure they weren’t at this stage in their - what, partnership? Friendship? Team… building? But then again, maybe him calling her over to investigate his newly arrived four-year-old has changed the dynamics a little.

     Except then Lucy reads the first half of the text again and she frowns. Dropping her spoon into the bowl, she writes back, _What happened last night?_

     There’s a pause. Three little dots pop up in a speech bubble on the screen; Wyatt’s writing something. Lucy waits, tapping her fingernails against the phone case.

     Wyatt says, _Don’t check your voicemails!!!_

     Okay, and now she _really_ wants to know. Lucy hesitates, fingers hovering over the keys. Obviously Wyatt assumed she’d already listened to them, but she hadn’t noticed the missed call notifications earlier. Now, though, she can see the glaring red number on the phone icon. 4 missed calls. All overnight.

     Another text comes through. This one says, _Srsly, don’t. I was drunk and really rude. There’s a Cowboys game on at 2 & Marley wants to see you._

     It wouldn’t be the first time Lucy’s receieved angry messages from a drunk. She stares at the missed calls for a moment longer and then makes her decision. She’ll ignore them. She’ll be the bigger person, she’ll do the right thing by Wyatt, and it’ll make their team bond stronger. Or… whatever. Something like that. Really, though, Lucy just doesn’t want to hear whatever he’d said in those messages. If he feels bad enough to be pathetically inviting her over to watch football, it must have been awful.

     She says, _How is Marley? How are you?_

 _I’m shit. Marley hates me. Pls come._  

     Lucy looks at the books scattered over the table. There are still five hours until 2pm - plenty of time for her to keep reading. And it’s not like she hates watching football, because she doesn’t. And if Wyatt’s still struggling with Marley… well, she’d promised to help him yesterday and then she hadn’t. She’d left him in the lurch on Friday. And even if she wants to act like this isn’t her problem - because it isn’t - she can’t help feeling a surge of pity for the man. Or, not quite pity, but sympathy, definitely. Empathy. Something.

     She texts back. Two letters. _OK._

Marley opens the apartment door. She’s all decked out in the Cowboys’ navy blue and white, and she grins when she sees Lucy.

     “Daddy said you’d come to watch football with us.”

     “Yep,” Lucy says. “I’m ready. But I don’t have any Cowboys clothes.”

     “I’ll get you a hat,” Marley says immediately, and she backs away from the door and vanishes deeper into the apartment.

     Lucy is left to let herself in, which she does, closing the door carefully behind her. And then she just stands, a little awkwardly, jingling her car keys in one hand. She thinks about calling out for Wyatt, but what if he’s in the bathroom, or something? And Lucy’s interrupting?

     It’s stupid. She’s being stupid. She slides the keys into her back pocket and takes half a step out from the entrance and into the rest of the apartment.

     Marley reappears, skidding over the wood in her socks, clutching a navy ball cap and a scrunched up t-shirt. “Here,” she says, holding out the cap. “And I got you the special shirt too.”

     “Oh,” Lucy says, and she’s about to ask if there’s somewhere she can change, but Marley holds the shirt up proudly and it unfolds.

     The white letters emblazoned on the navy shirt read; _I MARRIED INTO THIS_ , and Lucy feels her heart catch. It’s a woman’s shirt.

     “Do you like it?” Marley asks.

     “Where did you get it?”

     “From my room.”

     “Marley, I don’t think I should wear this one,” Lucy says. She takes the shirt, gently, and holds it against her chest. “Why don’t we put it back in your room?”

     “Why?”

     “I’m just - not sure it’ll fit me.” The lie is clumsy, and Lucy knows it. She shakes her head and says, “It’s better just to have the cap, okay?”

     Marley’s eyes narrow. “Why?” she repeats.

     “Where’s Wyatt?” Lucy asks, and then she pauses and corrects herself. “I mean your Daddy.”

     “He went across the hall to see Jackie.”

     That’s a relief. Lucy doesn’t want to talk about this while Wyatt’s here. She can feel the softness of the shirt in her hands; she can picture Jessica wearing it. “I think this was your Mom’s shirt,” Lucy says.

     “Oh. It was?”

     “Yeah. I think so.”

     “My Mommy died,” Marley says.

     “I know. I’m sorry.”

     “It was when I was a baby, so I don’t remember. Is it really her shirt?”

     “Yeah,” Lucy says, crouching down so that her head is on a level with Marley’s. She holds the shirt out. “Do you see the words? They say, _I married into this_.”

     “What does that mean?”

     “It means that your Mommy married a big Cowboys fan.”

     “She married Daddy.”

     “Right, so when she got married, she became a Cowboys fan too. That’s what the shirt means.” Lucy watches Marley’s face, waiting for the spark of understanding.

     The little girl is frowning. “She didn’t like the Cowboys before she got married?”

     “Oh, sweetie, I don’t know. But I know this was your Mommy’s shirt, okay? So it’s not right for me to wear it.”

     “Because Mommy would get angry?”

     “Um.” Lucy wonders how to field this one. She’s an atheist, but she doesn’t know if Wyatt is. She doesn’t know what the Wyatt of _this_ timeline might have chosen to tell his small, motherless daughter. “Mostly the reason is because Daddy might get sad.”

     Marley considers it. “Yeah,” she says, “I think he would. Did you know he hid _all_ the pictures?”

     “Did he?”

     “Uh huh. He found all the pictures of Mommy and he took them away.”

     Lucy winces. She wonders how that had felt for Wyatt - coming face-to-face with the woman he’d failed to save, over and over again. Only having Marley here as some sort of perverse reminder that he’d changed history, but not in the way he’d wanted. Not necessarily for the better.

     Except there’s this little sweet-faced girl looking up at Lucy with rosy cheeks, and golden curls, and a bright spark of life in her blue eyes.

     “It sounds like he’s feeling sad,” Lucy says. “Where was this shirt?”

     “At the very bottom of the drawer.”

     “Do you think you can go and put it back, then?”

     “Okay,” Marley says. She plucks the shirt out of Lucy’s arms and adds, “But you gotta wear the hat!”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How much fun has S2 been so far?! I'm pretty thrilled with it tbh.

The kid is good at watching football. Wyatt’s got to hand it to her. It’s not always the easiest sport to watch, or the most exciting, but Marley keeps herself entertained. She’s made a little nest on the couch with the pillows and the stuffed toys, and during ad breaks or slow parts of the game she whispers to them. Acts out little scenarios.

     She’s good at drawing her attention back to the screen when something important happens, too. She watches Wyatt to see how he reacts and then she copies him. And yeah, okay, he has to admit. It’s not that bad. She’s not a bad kid.

     He could even like her, if she was someone else’s kid. He’d probably be kinda entranced with the way she cheers when the Cowboys score a touchdown, or the way she moans at the referee after every call he makes. She even complains about the good calls, and Wyatt finds himself thinking about shuffling a little closer to her and explaining what they actually want the ref to say.

     But she’s not someone else’s kid, is the issue. She thinks she’s _his_ kid. And Wyatt can’t handle that. He stays where he’s sitting and he only watches Marley out of the corner of his eye.

     Lucy, to his surprise, seems to follow the game easily. It’s not that he’d been assuming she wouldn’t _get_ football - except, yeah, that’s exactly what he’d been assuming. Not because she’s a woman, either, but it’s just the... she’s just Lucy. Part historian, part librarian, part teacher who’s always scolding him like he’s going to fuck up the timeline.

     It’s entirely possible he’s going to fuck up the timeline.

     But she laughs and leans forward to watch the screen with rapt attention, comments on the plays to Wyatt and asks Marley questions about the players. The third quarter ends, and the Cowboys are 28 points up. The Bengals still haven’t scored a single point, which Marley has been increasingly gleeful about. It’s been almost two hours, which is a long time for a kid to watch a football game.

     It’s a long time for Wyatt, too. He gets to his feet and stretches his arms over his head.

     “Bathroom break,” he says. “You ladies want any drinks?”

     Lucy shakes her head politely. “I’m fine, thank you.”

     “Juice, Daddy,” Marley requests.

     Wyatt hates being called Daddy. _Hates_ it. “Yeah, okay,” he says.

     The bathroom is the only room in the house where Wyatt hadn’t found any pictures of Jess. That’s not to say it hasn’t changed in this timeline, though. There’s a new tiny green seat on the toilet which Wyatt has to remember to lift out of the way. The bath is literally full of toys. He’s not sure there’s even room for Marley in there among the ducks, and the dolphins, and the mermaid-tailed Barbie dolls, and R2D2. There’s a step stool in front of the sink and a pink butterfly-shaped cake of soap.

     Wyatt dries his hands on his pants as he steps out of the bathroom. The fourth quarter has just started, and Marley is laughing at something. Lucy is talking in a low, murmuring voice that Wyatt can’t hear, but the kid clearly finds it hilarious.

     He steps into the kitchen, deliberately not looking at the pictures on the fridge, and tugs it open to get the apple juice. Wyatt doesn’t actually _like_ apple juice, but apparently the kid does. She also likes ice in it, even though it’s October. Forgetting the ice in her drink had been one of the many, many things Wyatt had done wrong yesterday.

     Marley had cried after he’d put her to bed. He’d heard her little hiccupping sobs, and then her soft voice talking to her toys. Telling them that it was okay. God, Wyatt had felt like such an ass, standing outside the door and listening to her. It wasn’t like he’d done anything _that_ bad either, but clearly she was devastated.

     The feeling had stuck with him all the way through the night. The familiar combination of guilt and anger, and the strange new sensation of… disappointment? In himself? At least, Wyatt thinks that’s what he’s been feeling. Really fucking disappointed by what a shitty father he’s turned out to be.

     But she doesn’t _feel like_ his kid.

     “Juice,” he says, carrying it through the kitchen and over to the couches, “and I got you water, Lucy, just in case.”

     “Oh.” She looks a little startled. “Thank you.”

     Wyatt grins at her. “You’re welcome.” How messed up is it that he finds socialising with Lucy easier than socialising with the kid?

     “We’re going to win, Daddy,” Marley says.

     Automatically, Wyatt flicks a glance up towards the score. Still 28-0. “Yeah, I think so,” he says. He settles down in his armchair and props his feet up on the coffee table.

     Marley drains her apple juice and chews on the ice cubes. Lucy takes a careful sip of her water. On screen, the Bengals’ wide-receiver makes a touchdown and Wyatt groans. Marley copies him. A second later they groan again when the kick is good for the extra point.

     “Are we still going to win?” Marley asks.

     Only ten minutes left in the quarter. “Looks like it.”

     And then Marley crosses the room and crawls up into the armchair and Wyatt freezes. He suddenly has a kid snuggling up against him - she’s sitting in his lap and leaning back against his chest, and she even reaches one hand up to play with the collar of his shirt.

     “I hope so,” she says.

     Wyatt can’t think of anything to say. Or do. She just seems so comfortable here; so natural. She’s brought the stuffed leopard toy, tucked safely under her arm, and she worms her little socked feet down between Wyatt’s knees.

     Awkwardly, he twists his head sideways to look at Lucy. She shrugs.

     “Do you want some more apple juice?” Wyatt asks. If Marley says yes, he can shake her off and get up to retreat into the kitchen.

     “No thanks.” She turns sideways into him, so that her head rests against his shoulder. “Is it nearly finished now?”

     “Yeah,” Wyatt answers automatically. He squints back at the screen. The Bengals have called a timeout. Five minutes left in the quarter. “Not too long.”

     “What are we having for dinner?”

     “I don’t know.”

     Marley squirms further over and looks at Lucy. “Are you staying for dinner?”

     “I’m not sure,” Lucy says.

     Wyatt stares at the screen until it blurs in-front of him. Marley is so small, but so heavy. And warm. Like a little hot-water-bottle, or a weighted comforter. Flyaway strands of her blond hair float up around Wyatt’s face and tickle his skin. She smells like juice and fresh grass and something that he can’t identify.

     His dad had been such a shithead. It was why Wyatt had been against it, when Jess had told him she wanted kids. The reason he’d always put it off. _Not yet, not now, not ready._ All those excuses when the truth was so very simple. He hadn’t wanted to risk it. Biology and genetics and bad blood and a bad upbringing. It all came together; it could all contribute. And Wyatt hadn’t wanted to risk it. He hadn’t wanted to risk hurting a kid.

     But she’s here now, soft and warm in his arms, and the skin of her arm is so smooth under his hand. He can’t imagine hurting her. Ever. He can’t imagine letting anything else hurt her.

     Fuck. He never _asked_ to feel like this.

     The Cowboys win and Marley cheers. Wyatt seizes the opportunity to turf her off his lap, setting her on the ground and standing up.

     “I’m making dinner,” he says, when she turns around to glare at him. Never mind that it’s only quarter past five. Kids can eat early. “Want to play with Lucy?”

     “Can I watch TV?”

     “We just spent three hours watching TV.”

     “No,” Marley says. “I wanna watch _kid_ shows.” She stares up at him.

     “Okay, whatever. Watch some kid shows.” Wyatt hands over the remote. “You know which channel?”

     “Yeah, Daddy, I know.” She settles cross-legged on the ground in front of the screen.

     Wyatt’s going to pick his battles. Also, he doesn’t think that her getting bad eyes from watching TV is really a top priority right now. He beckons Lucy into the kitchen with him and she pushes stuffed animals out of her way as she stands.

     “Are you okay?” she asks him, softly, when they’re mostly out of earshot of the lounge.

     “No,” Wyatt says. Of course he’s fucking not.

     “I’m sorry.”

     He shrugs. “It’s not like there’s anything you can do about it. Not until we get back in the Lifeboat.”

     Lucy opens her mouth and then stops and closes it again, chewing on her lip. Her dark eyes slide away, refusing to look at Wyatt.

     “What?” he asks her.

     “Nothing.”

     “No, seriously, what? If you’ve got an idea, tell me.”

     “It’s not an idea, Wyatt. I’m just - I’m not so sure it’ll be that simple to fix this.”

     “I made her,” he says. “I can take it back.”

     Lucy sighs, sliding her hands into her pockets. Wyatt’s hardly ever seen her in jeans before, he realises. She looks nice - well, not nice, casual, he thinks, if casual is nice. He turns away from her and tugs the fridge open.

     “Don’t tell anyone about her,” Lucy says. “Not yet.”

     “What?”

     “At Mason Industries. Just - let me talk to Jiya first.”

     “Jiya?”

     “Yeah. I trust her.”

     “What do you mean, you trust her?” Wyatt can’t find anything decent in the fridge. He pushes the door closed and turns to the pantry instead. “Do you not trust the rest of them?”

     “I don’t know,” Lucy sighs. “I’m sorry. I must sound crazy.”

     “Just a bit, yeah.” Wyatt pulls down a box of bowtie-shaped pasta. “But it’s time travel. We all sound crazy now, right?” He looks over his shoulder at Lucy and she gives him a little smile.

     “We do.”

 

     They’re just about finished with dinner when Wyatt’s phone rings. He doesn’t hear it at first; he’s too busy watching Marley carry the bowls over to Lucy by the sink, the kid looking so proud of herself.

     When he does hear the phone and grab it to check the screen, he rolls his eyes and then says, “Lucy.”

     She looks over. “What is it?”

     Wyatt holds the phone up and waggles it at her. “Work.”

     “Oh,” Lucy says. She looks down at Marley. “Shoot.”

     Wyatt answers the call and wonders what he’s supposed to do with the kid. Jackie isn’t going to be back until eight, at least. From the knowledge he’s gleaned so far, it sounds as though he usually leaves Marley sleeping here alone. The thought doesn’t really sit right with him, but with Jackie literally right next door…

     It’s not a mission. Or, not the regular kind of mission. It’s the old kind - the ones Wyatt used to do. It’s a raid.

     “They’ve found the Mothership,” he says to Lucy, hanging up. “I’m going in with them.”

     Her eyes go wide as she stares at him. “Flynn?”

     “He’s there,” Wyatt says. “As far as we know.” He shrugs and then says, “Can you do me a huge favour?”

     “Um, sure? What?”

     “Can you stay here with Marley until me or Jackie get back?”

     “They don’t need me? Or - or Rufus?”

     “Not yet,” Wyatt says grimly. “Not unless I screw up.”

     “Okay. Yeah, okay, I can stay. It’s fine. Not a big deal.”

     “Thanks,” Wyatt says. “You’re a lifesaver. Just put her to bed if it gets late.” He almost goes to hug Lucy and stops himself, because it doesn’t feel right. No matter how kind she’s being to him about all of this, she’s still a colleague. A new colleague. He arrests the movement halfway and gives her a friendly clap on the shoulder instead.

     “When will Jackie be back?” Lucy asks.

     “Eight, I think.” Wyatt rubs a hand over Marley’s head. “Bye, kiddo.”

     “Where are you going?” she asks, hanging off the fridge door.

     “Work. I’ll be back late. Lucy’s going to put you to bed.”

     “Oh,” Marley says. She closes the fridge and folds her arms over her chest.

     Wyatt waits, but there’s nothing else. She just stands there. He leaves.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew okay I just watched 2x03 (Hedy Lamarr) and it was super fun times. But that ending though. Yikes. This show is bullying us. 
> 
> Rewrote this chapter half a dozen times before I decided eh screw it and made a giant change in direction waaaay sooner than I intended which, hopefully, will work. I'm not sure. Let me know?

     The last time Marley had been in the time-capsule she’d puked. It’s not an inspiring memory. She’d also completely failed her mission, gotten lost for two days in the desert, and had to use an Intervention to get herself water and a map. Embarrassing is really an understatement.

     Still, that was her first mission. This is going to be her second. She’s wearing appropriate 1830s clothing but she’s got a gun strapped to her thigh and two Interventions tucked down the bodice of her dress. It’s worth being prepared, no matter how stupid she’d feel if she needed to use another one.

     Jett leans in through the door and passes over the coin and the book. “Okay,” he says. “Yoyo’s set, so if you miss the window, you’ll have to wait in Texas until official business is over.”

     Marley shrugs. “I know. I won’t miss it.”

     “Six hours,” he warns.

     “I’ve got it, J.” Marley leans back in her seat and settles her head into the cradle. The buffers inflate until they’re pushing against her cheeks and temples. She drops the book in her lap and folds her hands on top of it, twisting the coin between her fingers, and waits.

     Jett closes the door and Marley closes her eyes. She swallows, hard. She’s not going to puke this time.

     The world twists around her, unravels and rewrites suddenly and violently, and Marley shakes in her seat. The straps hold her body down and the cradle keeps her head and neck still but she still feels the impact through every part of her.

     And then the door slides open and a sick brightness bleeds through Marley’s eyelids and she barely has time to drop the buffers and release her head from the cradle before she has to lean forwards and puke.

     “Damnit,” she mutters, wiping her mouth on her sleeve and opening her eyes. The sunlight is already settling into a more acceptable yellow spectrum, and the sharp spike of pain in Marley’s head eases off quickly. She hits the release on her straps and then she crawls out of the seat and rolls out of the capsule.

     The door closes once she’s out, fitting seamlessly into the smooth metal oblong of the capsule. Six hours, Marley thinks, and she tucks the coin down the side of her boot, pressing it against the bone of her ankle where she’ll feel it buzzing with her final warning.

     It’s a shorter walk than she’d expected. Marley tugs her skirts up in both hands, holding them around her waist. After all, it’s not like there’s anyone around to see. The flat plain is empty for miles - except for the dark smudge on the horizon which is the Alamo.

     Getting in doesn’t take much effort. Marley walks inside. It’s that simple. And then she walks up to the first man she sees and asks him how many strangers he’s seen in the last few days.

     He laughs. “One,” he says, “and that’s you.”

     “No one else? You’re sure? Two men and a woman,” Marley says. “One of the men is black.”

     The guy shrugs like that doesn’t mean anything. “Lady, I’m no bookkeeper, but ain’t nobody new coming to help us.”

     “Right,” Marley says. “Okay.”

     She’s early. And the walk had taken her nearly two hours. There’s no way she’s making it back before the window closes.

 

     Over the past three days, the coin tucked against Marley’s ankle has buzzed and fallen silent no less than twenty times. Jett’s putting a real effort in to try and get her home safe, and she appreciates it, but she also can’t leave until she’s done. Plus, she’s got the Interventions, and Jett must know she’ll use them if she needs to.

     It’s not like there’s nothing to do around here. Marley’s good at blending in. She fetches water and chops wood and entertains children and eats more beef and corn than she really wants to. There’s a time and a place for beef and corn.

     She also really, _really_ hopes that Jett hasn’t been suicidal enough to tell her parents where she’s gone. Or when.

     They walk in on the afternoon of the third day and even though Marley’s been expecting them, the sight still sends a shiver down her spine. For a second, she thinks they’re from her time, and they’ve come to yell at her. A second look changes her mind. They’re _young_. Younger than she ever remembers them being. Older than her, sure, but still so young.

     Marley had joked about this with Mom before. Asking questions like, _would we have been friends, if we were the same age?_ And Mom had never given a straight answer, which made Marley think the answer was probably _no_. But Mom hasn't shied away from talking about how much of a pain in the ass Dad was. There’s a darker truth hidden under the whining and the jokes, too, that Dad was kind of broken during this time. They’re not Mom and Dad here. They’re Lucy and Wyatt, and Marley barely knows them at all.

     It doesn’t matter how messed up Wyatt is, because he’s not the one Marley needs to talk to.

 

     She catches Lucy writing the letter.

     “Lucy,” Marley says.

     The dark head jerks up. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

     Marley laughs. “Not really. I know you, though.” Nothing to do except lay it out straight, Marley thinks, and so she smacks the book down on the desk, puts her palms either side of it and leans forward. “I’m a time traveller too.”

     That’s enough to make Lucy jump up, fear washing over her face. “You’re with Flynn.”

     “No,” Marley says. “You’ve come from twenty-sixteen. I’ve come from twenty-thirty-two.”

     Lucy’s mouth gapes. “Are you - you’re serious,” she says. “Wow. Really? Wow.” A crease appears between Lucy’s eyebrows; smaller and fainter than Marley is used to. This Lucy has smooth, unlined skin, and no scar slicing through her eyebrow, and darker hair pulled loosely back from her face.

     The coin buzzes against Marley’s ankle. She stops herself from groaning. Another window missed. “We don’t have much time,” she says. “Here’s what you need to know-”

     “Why are you here?”

     “I’m trying to explain,” Marley says, rolling her eyes.

     “How did you get here?”

     “I-”

     “Is this something to do with Rittenhouse?”

     “Stop!” Marley snaps. “Just take the book. Okay? Take it back with you.”

     Lucy shakes her head. “Why would I do that?”

     “It’s important,” Marley says. She pulls her lip between her teeth and worries it for a moment and then she says the magic words. “I’m trying to save my sister.”

     “Your _sister?_ ”

     “Please,” Marley says. “Take the book. And make sure Wyatt leaves with you. He can’t stay here.”

     “Wyatt _stay?_ _Here?_ ”

     “Yes! Don’t let him stay.”

     Lucy just stares at her. The pen shakes in her hand, dripping ink on the desk. The candle flames waver. Everything is waiting.

     Outside the walls of the Alamo, the music stops. The attack is coming _now_.

     “There’s no time for this,” Marley says. She pushes the book across the desk. “Take it with you. Don’t tell _anyone_ I was here.”

     She leaves while Lucy is still frozen and staring.

 

     No Intervention required this time. Marley sits at the rendezvous through the night hugging herself against the cold with her back up against a tree and her mind whirling. She won’t know until she gets home if it’s worked, and the waiting feels like an eternity.

     The coin in her sock buzzes an hour before the capsule appears and Marley takes the chance to make herself comfortable. She tugs the pins from her hair one at a time, letting it fall down over her shoulders. She unbuckles her stupidly tight boots, too, and sets them on the ground beside her.

     There’s a dull boom of misplaced air when the capsule arrives and Marley grimaces, rubbing at her ears. She waits until the capsule is settled and then she grabs her boots, opens the door and crawls inside. Straps across her body, head in the cradle, eyes closed tight, mouth closed tighter.

     With some really, really supreme self-control, Marley manages to keep everything inside her roiling stomach this time. It helps that she hasn’t eaten for a day. She’s still dizzy when the door opens, but the look on Mom’s face really snaps her out of it.

     “Oh shit,” Marley says, tugging her head free of the cradle and hanging from her straps to peer past Mom. There’s Jett, standing behind her, and he shrugs and holds up his hands helplessly. Marley rolls her eyes.

     “The swearing? Really not helping you out here, Marley.” Mom’s got that look in her eyes, and her lips are pressed together into a very thin line.

     “Okay,” Marley says, “but before you tear me a new one, can you at least tell me if it worked?”

     “It didn’t work. I didn’t take the book.” Mom reaches forward to hit the button on the straps and, released of their support, Marley slides out of her seat and onto the floor.

     “I can try again, Mom, I can make it work-”

     “No,” Mom says, sharp and fast. “No more. Messing with time is _never_ worth the risk, do you hear me? Never.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this chapter might have too much exposition. Soooorryyy. I'm trying not to repeat any scenes or lines from the show verbatim, too, because that always annoys me so much when I read it elsewhere - but it may make some situations etc confusing for anyone who hasn't watched S1 for a little while?  
> You guys are cool, you can handle it. And you all deserve macarons. The nice kind. Maybe pistachio.

    

     They all wash the dust of the 1830s off their skin at Mason Industries. It’s a relief for Lucy to get back into jeans and a sweater. All her stuff is in her locker, just where she’d left it. She leans sideways into Wyatt’s locker when he flips open his wallet and he runs his thumb over the little picture of Marley tucked inside.

     “She’s still here,” he says.

     Lucy glances over her shoulder and then slams her locker shut. “We should watch that James Bond movie,” she says.

     “Weapon of Choice?” Wyatt asks.

     “You’ll have it in your apartment,” Lucy says. “You have all the other ones. We should watch it there.”

     Wyatt stares at her and she stares back meaningfully, willing him to understand. He says, “Uh, sure. Rufus?”

     “Sounds good,” Rufus says. “Where’s your apartment?”

     “Give me your number,” Lucy says. “I’ll text you.” She slides her phone out of her pocket and Rufus recites his cell number. When he’s finished, Lucy says, “Bring Jiya too, okay?”

     “Oh.” Rufus frowns. “Okay. Tonight?”

     “Tonight,” Lucy confirms.

 

     It’s a lot easier to show Rufus and Jiya, instead of telling them. Once they see the toys and the pictures they understand. Wyatt opens Marley’s bedroom door to reveal the little girl tucked beneath her blankets, one arm flung out and her mouth open in sleep. She looks small and vulnerable and it’s a lot easier to explain why Wyatt and Lucy have been trying to keep her away from Mason Industries. Trying to hide her. Hoping she’ll be safe.

     “You’re sure you didn’t have a kid before?” Jiya says.

     Wyatt says, “No.”

     “It really does change like this,” Rufus adds. “Just… not for the people who stay here. Like the movie.” He gestures at the TV screen, the DVD menu playing on mute. “It never existed for us before. But you remember it.”

     “Well. Not really,” Jiya says. “I don’t like James Bond. But I get what you’re saying.”

     Lucy almost grins at the look on Wyatt’s face. Almost. But there’s too much weighing her down. Marley isn’t the only bombshell they’re going to have dropped on them tonight. She clears her throat and says, “I have to tell you something.”

 

     It takes her almost an hour to explain the story properly. Lucy talks about the blond woman, the book that she’d dropped in the aqueduct on the way out of the fort and twenty-thirty-two. Wyatt and Jiya interrupt with questions and Rufus just sits there and frowns. The TV turns itself off and none of them make a move to switch it back on.

     “You’re sure she wasn’t with Flynn?” Wyatt asks.

     “I’ve told you I don’t know.” Lucy blows out a breath. “She did look familiar, but I just don’t know.”

     “Why would she try to meet you at the Alamo?” Jiya wonders. “If she’s from the future, why not just come back to now and give you the book?”

     “I don’t know.”

     Rufus is very quiet. _Very_ quiet. Lucy finds herself watching him while the other two talk. There’s something bright and fearful in his eyes.

     “What about Rittenhouse?” he blurts suddenly.

     “I asked her,” Lucy says. “She didn’t say anything about them.”

     “We don’t even know if Rittenhouse is real,” Wyatt points out. “I think it’s just Flynn’s excuse.”

     Rufus frowns down at his hands. “Oh, they’re real,” he says.

     There’s a frozen silence in the room and then the three of them turn to Rufus. Lucy finds herself clenching her fists in her lap, fingernails digging into her palms, and she forces herself to relax.

     “Rufus?” she says, hating how her voice wavers. She can trust him - she _does_ trust him, after everything they’ve been through. He’d thrown himself on her side wholly and completely to keep Wyatt on the team. Lucy knows that. She does. But her heart pounds when Rufus looks at her and she wonders if she’s made a terrible mistake.

     “Connor asked me to do him a favour when we first went after Flynn,” Rufus says heavily. “He wanted me to record the missions.” He looks down at his hands. “You guys, specifically. Record you guys. Your conversations.”

     Revulsion crawls in Lucy’s gut and she has to swallow the sick feeling which rises in her throat. She shifts uncomfortably in her chair and glances over at Wyatt. He’s tense, half-out of his seat, hands curled into the armrests so tightly his knuckles are white.

     “I’m sorry,” Rufus says. “I’m really, really sorry. I told Connor I wasn’t going to do it anymore - that was after Germany - and then something weird happened.”

     He explains it as quickly and simply as possible; the way his car had mysteriously stopped working, the encounter with the other man. Connor Mason trying to _protect_ him. Like Rittenhouse was something Rufus needed protection from.

     It’s what Flynn’s been saying all along, and a tight coil of stress fills Lucy’s chest. And there’s something else, too. A thought that’s been nagging at her for weeks - a suspicion that she’s been ignoring.

     “Why me?” she blurts out into the pause after Rufus’ story.

     He stares at her. Wyatt does, too.

     Jiya curls her legs up into the chair and says, “What do you mean?”

     “I mean, why would Agent Christopher and Connor Mason come to me?”

     “Because you’re the historian,” Wyatt says. There’s an implied _duh_ in his tone.

     “Right,” Lucy says quickly. “I am the historian. And maybe I was the best one they could find in San Francisco, okay, sure, but what about this timeline? The timeline where my mother isn’t sick?”

     “Why you,” Jiya says slowly. “Why not your mother?”

     “Exactly.”

     “Maybe you were just the better historian,” Wyatt suggests.

     Lucy shakes her head. “No. Not possible. My mom is way more qualified than I am. She’s older, she’s smarter, she’s published more, she’s taught more. I can’t think of any reason - any _good_ reason - for them to choose me and not her.”

     “You think it’s all connected,” Rufus says. “Connor making me record you and Wyatt. You being picked for the job. _Wyatt_ being picked for the job.”

     Lucy shrugs. “I’m not sure about anything but it just - it makes sense.” A sick kind of sense. The coldness in the room creeps over Lucy and she shivers and huddles deeper into her sweater.

     Wyatt shifts in his seat. “All right,” he says. “So we’re back where we started. We don’t know anything and we don’t know who to trust. Great.”

 

     Talking doesn’t get them any further. Just round in circles, asking the same questions again and again until they all get sick of it and Wyatt puts the movie on. That’s a little easier. Watching the jazzed up, vastly less terrifying recap of their adventures in Germany is distracting enough for Lucy to let her mind switch off. Just for two hours.

     By the time the credits roll, Lucy’s whole body is pleasantly numb. She’s had more wine than she probably should’ve, and she’s too exhausted to feel scared, or confused, or unhappy. She’s just tired. She wants to stretch out on the couch and sleep.

     There’s a little gentle ribbing about the Lucy of the movie, who had, inevitably, slept with James Bond before going back to America. Even that’s not enough to perk Lucy up. She laughs a little and it’s all amusingly fuzzy and she’s definitely very buzzed and possibly slightly drunk.

     She dozes while Rufus and Jiya leave, resting her head on her arm. It’s warm and the yellow light shines against her eyelids. The couch is soft underneath her and she can hear murmurs of voices in the hall, or maybe in the kitchen.

     Wyatt shakes her shoulder and she raises her head. “I only closed them for a second.”

     “You were asleep,” he says. “You’re too far gone to drive home, huh?”

     “Little bit,” Lucy admits.

     “Yeah. Come on.”

     She stands up when he pulls at her, and lets him lead her down the hall. “No spare room,” she says, when they pass Marley’s door. “Uh oh.”

     “As long as you don’t puke on my bed.”

     “Not gonna,” Lucy says, because she doesn’t feel _sick_ , just tired. So, so tired. Everything is heavy and thick and she wants to put her head down somewhere.

     Wyatt says, “Whoa, hey, not here.”

     “What?”

     “It’s a laundry hamper, Lucy, come on.”

     He tugs her away and she follows him, sits down when he tells her to. It’s a bed, and it’s unfamiliar but it’s soft. Lucy tips over sideways until her head hits a pillow and then she sighs out, deep and relieved. This is what she needs. A proper sleep, so that everything gets sorted out in her head and the thoughts can stop spinning.

     Wyatt says something before he leaves but it’s too quiet for Lucy to understand.

 

     It’s a little girl’s voice which wakes her. Lucy struggles up out of sleep and it’s hard, because there’s a pounding in her head and a fuzz on her tongue which makes her uncomfortably aware she’d had too much to drink. Her jeans button is pressing into her middle and she shifts to take the pressure off.

     When she rolls to her side and slits her eyes open she sees a cloud of blond hair.

     “Marley?”

     “What are you doing in Daddy’s bed?” Marley asks. She sounds way too bright and cheerful. Lucy has never been a morning person.

     “I was too tired to go home last night, so I slept here,” she says, hoping that’s enough to stall any further questions.

     “Oh,” Marley says. She climbs up onto the bed, kneeling beside Lucy, and pushes her hair back with both hands. “Why?”

     “Why was I tired?”

     “No. Why did you sleep in Daddy’s bed?”

     “Um. He said I could?” Lucy tries. It doesn’t sound like a very compelling reason, even to her.

     “Where’s Daddy sleeping?”

     “I’m not sure.” And there’s no way Lucy’s ever going to feel comfortable enough to fall back asleep - as much as she wants to - in last night’s clothes and _Wyatt’s bed_. She sits up instead, pushing the blankets down to her waist. “Should we go and find him?”

     “Okay, yes,” Marley says, putting a hand on Lucy’s shoulder to balance as she scrambles backwards off the bed. “Why did you sleep in your clothes?”

     “I didn’t have any pyjamas here.”

     “Why didn’t you borrow some of Daddy’s?”

     “I don’t know,” Lucy says. Her shoes are gone, and she doesn’t remember taking them off. “I guess we didn’t think of that. Hey, Marley?”

     “Yeah?”

     “Do you see my shoes anywhere?”

     Marley gives the bedroom a cursory glance. “Uh, no. Isn’t there enough room in Daddy’s bed for two people? Sometimes I share after nightmares. Didn’t you want to share?”

     Shoes can be found later, Lucy decides. Right now she’d rather get Marley to Wyatt before the girl asks any more complicated questions. “Come on,” she says. “I bet I know where Wyatt - I mean Daddy - is sleeping.”

     Marley bounces ahead of Lucy out of the room, her hair in tangled waves around her face and her feet bare. She looks like some sort of wild child, especially when she turns around to grin and flashes sharp little canines.

     They find Wyatt on the sofa. He’s stretched out with a cushion under his head, a blanket wrapped around his legs and an arm thrown up over his eyes. Lucy pauses when she sees him, suddenly unsure of herself. She isn’t absolutely sure he’s asleep, but it seems wrong to wake him. Or disturb him. Embarrassment floods her when she realises he must have practically put her to bed last night - in his own room, no less - and she glances around for her shoes with renewed interest. She’ll get her shoes and get out now, before this gets any weirder.

     “Daddy!” Marley takes a run-up and launches herself straight at Wyatt. She lands solidly on his chest with a thud that makes Lucy wince.

     Wyatt jerks and then he’s sitting up and his arm shoots out, toppling Marley sideways off his body and onto the floor. She lands hard and there’s a taut, frozen moment.

     Marley breaks first. Her face crumples and tears spring to her eyes. Lucy thinks it’s from shock as much as from pain, but the girl definitely knows how to turn on the waterworks. Her mouth opens and she wails, and the tears burst from under her tightly closed eyelids and spill down her cheeks.

     It takes a little longer for the other two to react. Lucy wants to go to Marley - she almost does. She takes a half-step forwards and then stops herself. It’s not her kid. It’s not her business. She should get her shoes.

     Wyatt groans and rubs his forearm over his eyes. “Marley,” he says. “Hey, Marley, come on. It’s okay. I’m sorry, you just startled me, okay?” He reaches down for her where she’s kneeling on the floor and tries to lift her to her feet. She’s limp and resistant to his efforts; intentionally, Lucy assumes. Wyatt gets a firmer grip under her armpits and Marley wails again, louder.

     “Ow!” she shrieks. “Ow, ow!” Now she does get to her feet, scrambling, and she turns away from Wyatt and bolts into Lucy.

     Suddenly there’s a sobbing, crying child clinging to her thighs. Marley’s face is pressed up against Lucy’s hip, and her arms wrap around and curl into Lucy’s jeans. The little girl’s got a tight grip. Her body shakes with the force of her sobs and there are words mingled in that Lucy can’t understand.

     “Hey, hey,” she says, rubbing Marley’s back and making helpless eye contact with Wyatt over the girl’s head. He shrugs, defeated, and scrubs a hand backwards through his hair.

     There’s a repetitive note to the cries Marley is making. It reminds Lucy of a long time ago, when Amy had been about seven. She’d start crying crocodile tears about every little thing - really convincing ones, too. Usually it was to try and get Lucy in trouble. Lucy would say something, or do something, and Amy would start crying and run straight to Mom or Dad. God, it had driven her crazy.

     “Hey,” Lucy says, pushing gently at Marley’s shoulders until the girl releases her legs. “Marley, hey. Have you ever been ice skating?”

     Marley raises a small, tear-stained face to Lucy. “What?”

     “Ice skating.”

     “I don’t know,” she says.

     “Would you like to try?” Lucy asks. “It’s a lot of fun.” She reaches around into her back pocket and fumbles her phone loose. “Here, why don’t I show you some videos, okay, and then you can decide.”

     Marley holds out both hands for the phone and says, “Okay.”

     Lucy finds a figure skating video quickly - something from Stars On Ice, with an upbeat, catchy tune and flashy costumes. The phone sucks Marley in and Lucy walks the girl to the couch and sits her down. The tears have vanished as quickly as they’d appeared.

     “Thanks,” Wyatt murmurs.

     “It’s fine.” Lucy’s ears feel hot. “I’m sorry about last night.”

     He turns to stare down at her. “What do you mean?”

     “I shouldn’t have stayed here.”

     “No, it’s okay.”

     “It’s not,” Lucy says. “And you shouldn’t have given up your bed.”

     Wyatt half-laughs. “I can sleep anywhere. Military perks.”

     “Even so-”

     “Lucy,” he says. “It’s not a big deal. Okay?”

     “Okay.”

     “Are you staying for breakfast?”

     It’s all starting to feel a little too… domestic. Too much. Too good to be true. Something like that. And it’s Wyatt, which is part of the problem. He’s too funny. Too kind. Too good-looking. Lucy trusts him, implicitly, to keep her safe. It’s a little much to ask her to feel all that and _not_ start to hope for - or wish for - impossible things.

     She doesn’t want to feel anything for Wyatt beyond friendship. The idea of it seems wrong. He’s still mourning Jessica - and now they have a _kid_ together, which isn’t making anything easier - and Lucy is not prepared to risk a partnership just because she can’t keep herself in check. It’s better for her not to feel anything.

     “I don’t think so,” she says. And hesitates. Because there’s Marley, on the couch, clutching Lucy’s phone with tear-tracks still on her cheeks. “But, um, Wyatt?”

     “Yeah?”

     “Do you know how to ice skate?”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to wait until I finished S2 before I updated. SOZ. Didn't wanna see spoilers!  
> Man, that season was great. Beautifully paced. Timeless is such a phenomenal show. Give us our damn renewal, guys! Sheesh. 
> 
> I've been excessively productive today and written two chapters ahead of this one, so there might actually be weekly updates for a little while, folks! Don't hold your breath though.

Daddy is good at skating. He can even go _backwards._

     “You should be a figure skater,” Marley tells him.

     “Uh,” he says. “Thanks?”

     “I’m going to be a figure skater.” This is a new idea, but Marley loves the ice skating place. She likes how cold it is - so that her breath comes out in dragon puffs and her nose and ears feel so so cold and she gets to wear her brand new gloves.

     Lucy touches Marley’s shoulder. “What else do you want to be when you grow up?”

     Marley has to think about that one. She wants to be a figure skater now, so she’s forgotten the other stuff. Except not really, because then she remembers. “A football player. And a zookeeper. And a submariner.”

     “A submariner?”

     “Yeah,” Marley says, “to study octopuses.” She takes a few ice-steps closer to Lucy. “Can you go backwards?”

     “Not anymore.”

     “Oh.” Marley hangs onto Lucy’s hands and twirls around in a circle. “Skating is fun, huh?”

     “It is fun,” Lucy says.

     Daddy says, “You’re doing good, kiddo.”

     Cool. It feels good. Marley stretches out for Daddy, taking ice-steps across to him. She wobbles and her arms balance her, which is a good skating skill. When Marley is a figure skater, she’ll always use her arms for balance.

     She reaches Daddy and says, “Let’s go fast together, okay? I’ll hold your hand.” She grabs it with both of her hands. Daddy’s hand is big enough for Marley to hang on like that, with two fingers in each of her hands. And he’s not wearing gloves. Silly Daddy.

     There are lots of people here, which Daddy says is because it’s a Saturday. They have to be careful not to crash into anyone. Daddy can pull Marley really fast and she grins and narrows her eyes because they make a wind when they go fast. It blows her hair. When she turns to look behind, Lucy is really far away. She’s slow at catching up.

     “Don’t leave Lucy,” Marley says, tugging on Daddy’s hand.

     “We’ll circle back around, don’t worry.”

     “Is it okay if I be a figure skater?”

     “Yeah. Totally.”

     Marley frowns. “You’re supposed to say no because I have to be a cowgirl.”

     Daddy looks down at her and his face looks all scrunchy and confused. “Really?” He’s slowed them waaaaay down.

     Marley lets go of his hand, because he’s too slow. She puts her arms out for balance and skates to the edge, where there’s a wall to grab onto. Daddy forgets a lot of things now. He forgets things all the time. He doesn’t even remember to sing her a song to go to sleep. And she hasn’t asked, because maybe songs are for babies and Marley is about to turn five which means she’s a big girl now. But she misses the song.

     Lucy catches up to Marley by the wall. “You’re so good at this!”

     “I know,” Marley says. She glares over at Daddy, who is still standing in the middle and watching her. “Daddy’s being mean.”

     “I don’t think he’s doing it on purpose,” Lucy says. “Remember what we talked about?”

     “No. What?”

     “How Daddy’s very busy at his job, and it makes him very tired?”

     Marley remembers now. “Sometimes tired people are grumpy,” she says with a sigh. “He’s not grumpy, he just forgets everything.”

     “Do you ever forget things when you’re tired?”

     “I guess,” Marley says. Except she’s never really tired so she doesn’t really know. She moves her shoulders up and down in a shrug and then says, “Hold my hand and we’ll go back to find Daddy.”

     Lucy is much slower at skating, so Marley can’t just hang on to her hand and get pulled along. They both have to skate together. Step, step, step, slide. Step, step, step - and then Lucy yanks her hand away and Marley turns towards her and she’s wobbling a _lot_ and she falls down right on her butt.

     Daddy skids to a stop beside them and crouches on his skates. “Are you okay?”

     “Fine,” Lucy says. “Injured pride.”

     Marley wonders where a pride is and if it’s something that can break. “Sorry you fell over,” she says.

     Daddy puts both hands down and Lucy grabs them and Daddy hauls her up, quick as a wink. Quick as a flash. Quick, quick, quick. He wraps his arm around Lucy’s middle to hold her still and says, “Are you sure?”

     “Thanks,” Lucy says. “I’m fine.”

     “Okay.” Daddy lets her go.

     “What are other things that can be quick?” Marley asks him.

     Daddy touches the top of her head and says, “Huh?”

     “Like a wink?”

     “Uh, I dunno.”

     He looks confused again, like he doesn’t remember their game. They play with words, because learning words is good for when Marley starts Kindergarten. That’s only one year away, so it’s very soon.

     “Come on,” Marley sighs, and she skates away. Step, step, step, slide. She looks over her shoulder once to check if Daddy’s following. He’s holding onto Lucy’s arm. Smart move, Marley thinks. Now Lucy can’t fall down again.

 

     Stopping for fries and a milkshake is only the third favourite part of Marley’s day. Second was ice skating. First was when she and Daddy and Lucy walked through the park and Daddy lifted Marley up and put her on his shoulders so that she was so high up. She could see over everyone’s head, and all the orange fall leaves on the trees and on the ground and flying through the air.

     It’s been a long time since Daddy let her sit on his shoulders. He’s been so sad that he’s hardly even talked to Marley, and they haven’t played any of her favourite games for a really long time.

     Lucy is nice. She makes funny jokes and sometimes Daddy smiles at them even though he’s sad. Marley likes that. She decides that she’s going to invite Lucy to her birthday party, which is really soon.

     “Daddy?”

     There’s a pause before Daddy says, “Oh. Yeah?” like maybe he forgot Marley was talking to him. He’s _so_ forgetful.

     “Have you got my birthday present yet?”

     “Not yet.”

     “Promise it’s coming soon?”

     “I guess so.”

     That’s not the same as a promise. Marley frowns.

     “It will definitely be here in time for your birthday,” Daddy says quickly.

     Lucy leans across the table to steal one of Marley’s fries and she laughs and snatches it back. “Hey! Lucy!”

     “Sorry,” Lucy says. She’s smiling. She doesn’t look sorry. “Hey, Marley, what do you want for your birthday?”

     “A puppy or a baby sister.” Marley stops and thinks about it, because when she first told Daddy what she wanted he said that he couldn’t make a baby sister all by himself because he needed a girl to help him, and Marley said that Jackie was a girl and she could help, and then Daddy coughed up his coffee all on the table. But Lucy is also a girl. “Lucy, can you help with my baby sister?”

     Daddy coughs again. He’s probably nervous about having another baby. Marley isn’t nervous. She’s going to look after her baby sister and sing songs to her and give her plenty of cuddles.

     “I don’t think so,” Lucy says. She looks a bit sick.

     “Did you have too many fries?” Marley asks. She knows all about that.

     Daddy and Lucy look at each other like they don’t understand the question. Marley rolls her eyes. It hurts, which Jackie says is because she hasn’t mastered it yet. She has to keep practicing.

     “Also a giant horse I can ride on,” Marley adds. “For my birthday, I mean. It doesn’t have to be a real life horse because I know they can’t live in apartments.” She kicks her legs against her chair and for once Daddy doesn’t tell her to stop. That’s funny. “But I’m going to name it Candyfloss or maybe Sugar…” Sugar what? Marley can’t remember, but it starts with a P. She swings her chair back, holding onto the table edge and balancing on two chair-legs while she tries to think of it. “Sugar Peach,” she decides finally, rocking the chair, “and I can ride on her and be a cowgirl, so I might also need a hat. I can whoop like this.” Marley lifts one hand off the table and raises it over her head and tries to whoop but her chair slips.

     Her chair _slips._

     She falls right backwards, just like Daddy and Miss Ledford always said would happen and Marley’s head hits the table behind - _bang_ \- so hard. It feels like thunder and lightning all inside her head and then it goes black.

     The lights come back on and Marley starts to cry.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woohoo, 10 chapters! & not remotely close to being wrapped up. Sigh. I think I have a problem and I need to practice short stories.  
> On the other hand, response to this one has been great! Kudos are amazing and it's sooooo much fun reading everybody's comments. Thanks guys!  
> I think I've already caught up to my backlog of pre-written chapters uh oh. Let's see if I can get one out next week anyway.

She feels small in his arms. Really fucking small, and she’s still crying so much. There are tears and snot and blood on Wyatt’s shirt and on his skin and he doesn’t even care. He would hold Marley even tighter, if he could. Even closer. If he could take her inside his chest and keep her safe there then he would.

     Lucy is keeping pace with Wyatt and he’s not exactly sure _how_ she’s managing to stay alongside him, pressing a wad of napkins to Marley’s head and opening the doors to the ER at the same time, but he’s glad she’s here.

     “It’s going to be okay,” she says to him.

     “I don’t know any of her details,” Wyatt says back, suddenly horrified. “I don’t know her middle name, or if she has any allergies, or…. anything. Lucy.”

     “I know,” Lucy says. “I know, but we’ll figure it out. Just bluff our way through, right? We’ve done that before.”

     Wyatt pulls Marley in towards him and says, “I’ve got you, kiddo,” low and soft. He isn’t sure if she can hear him over the crying. She’s going to be okay. He’s going to make her be okay.

     The nurse at the intake desk speaks to him so calmly and sounds so detached that Wyatt wants to slap her. He doesn’t know how she can be so _casual_ when his daughter’s head is bleeding fucking buckets. Without Lucy’s cool hand on his arm, he isn’t sure if he would’ve been able to hold it together. But she squeezes his wrist and answers questions that Wyatt doesn’t remember the answer to - Marley’s birthday, how long ago she fell, whether she blacked out, if she’s spoken since.

     There’s nothing to do after that but wait. Wyatt cradles Marley in his lap and feels, for the first time, like she’s his kid. Except it’s not like she belongs to him. It’s more that he belongs to her. That he’d do anything to keep her safe.

     “It’s my fault,” he says. “I fucked up.”

     Lucy is stroking the damp hair back from Marley’s forehead, over and over again in a soothing, repetitive rhythm. “It’s okay,” she says. “This is new for you. It’s new for all of us.”

     Wyatt hadn’t realised. He hadn’t thought about how vulnerable the little girl was. She’d been so loud, and confident, and full of anger and temper tantrums and bossing him around when he got her the wrong juice, or the wrong shoes, or drove the wrong way to Pre-K. It had been so easy to forget that she’s four years old and there are things in life that she doesn’t understand. Dangers that she doesn’t know how to avoid.

     Protecting her until she gets old enough to learn - that’s what he’s supposed to be doing. It’s not just about getting her dressed and brushing her teeth and carrying her plushies around and answering a billion stupid questions every day.

     God, he’s been hating this ‘father’ thing for two weeks and he’s only now realising that it’s the same job he’s been doing all along. Keeping them safe. It doesn’t matter if it’s his fellow soldiers, or Rufus, or Lucy, or Marley. It’s the _same thing_.

     “Daddy?”

     “Hey,” he says, looking down at her. She’s finally stopped crying. “You’re okay, baby. You’re going to be okay.”

     “It hurts,” Marley whispers.

     “I know. You’re being so, so brave.”

     “Will the doctor fix me?”

     “Yes,” Wyatt says. “Absolutely, the doctor will fix you. I’m gonna make sure of it.”

 

     Wyatt drives on the way home, while Lucy sits in the back with Marley’s head in her lap. There’s still blood on Lucy’s jeans from the drive to the hospital, when they’d done the same thing. Now, Marley has six neat black stitches parting her blond hair and her eyes are closed. She’s exhausted from fighting the doctor - struggling and screaming while Wyatt helped to hold her down and tried desperately to reason with her.

     He glances at them in the rear-view. Lucy’s stroking Marley’s hair again. He can hear her humming something.

     “Thank you,” Wyatt says.

     Lucy lifts her head. Their eyes meet in the mirror. “What for?”

     “Being here today.”

     “It’s nothing.”

     “No, it is,” Wyatt argues. “It helped. A lot.”

     Her lips curve up. “Then… you’re welcome.”

     Wyatt parks in the underground lot. He takes Marley out of the back and carries her, while Lucy follows with instructions for wound-care and a pamphlet on concussion symptoms and warning signs. It’s a lot of advice, but Wyatt’s got experience in this area. Plenty of it. That’s not what he’s worried about.

     Doing it alone, now _that’s_ terrifying him. He isn’t sure if he would’ve been able to keep it together today without Lucy. And Wyatt is trained to keep it together. It takes a lot for him to lose control.

     He wants to ask Lucy to stay again, the way she had on Wednesday night. Just in case anything happens. In case he needs her. But admitting to needing anyone feels wrong, and with Lucy it just feels like too much. Wyatt can’t use her as some sort of emotional back-up all the time. That’s not her role - not in the team, and not in his life.

     Whatever way he looks at it, they’ve been through a helluva lot together. Wyatt wants to ask her to stay.

     He doesn’t.

     The elevator doors ping open and Wyatt steps out. His keys are tucked in his side pocket, and he tries to shuffle Marley in his arms to reach down for them. She’s heavy in sleep, hard to manoeuvre.

     Lucy touches his shoulder. “Which pocket?”

     “Right.”

     She reaches in, slender fingers brushing his leg through the fabric. “Which key?”

     “Square top,” Wyatt says, and then, “no, the other one,” when she dangles them in front of his face.

     Lucy steps around him to open the door, holds it while he carries Marley through and then follows him inside. She walks straight to Marley’s bedroom and opens that door, too, without being asked. Wyatt is as gentle as he can be when he sets Marley on the bed.

     “She’s got blood all over her shirt,” he notices. “Should I change her?”

     “Better to let her sleep.”

     “If she’s got a concussion-”

     “It’s only been a few minutes,” Lucy says. “You can give her a little longer before you wake her.”

     “Yeah,” Wyatt agrees. “Yeah, okay.” He tugs at the velcro straps on Marley’s little sneakers and then slides them off her feet. When he stands up, Lucy is right there, and they’re suddenly face-to-face. There are flecks of hazel in the darker brown of her eyes. Wyatt’s never noticed before.

     There’s a moment where the air in the room is still, like neither of them know what to do. Lucy breaks the deadlock. She steps out of the bedroom and Wyatt follows suit.

     “I should go home,” she says.

     Wyatt swallows hard to stop himself from saying anything to the contrary. “Okay,” he manages instead. And then pathetically adds, “You could come back tomorrow.”

     “I will,” Lucy says. “To check in on Marley. But maybe not until the afternoon.” She chews on her lip. “I was thinking of going to look for my father. Now that I know where he is.”

     It’s another sharp reminder that whatever weird shit Wyatt has going on in his own life, Lucy has stuff to deal with too.

     “Be safe,” he says.

     “Of course.” She smiles at him then, soft and sweet. “Come here.”

     Wyatt steps forward into the hug. He drapes his arms loosely around Lucy’s waist, feels her own arms weave around his shoulders. It’s good, for a second. It feels supportive. Safe. Like he’s not in this by himself.

     “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Lucy says into his shoulder, his shirt muffling her voice.

     Wyatt steps back. “Yeah,” he says. “See you tomorrow.”

     He walks her to the door and watches her down the hall until she’s out of sight. When she’s gone, Wyatt heads back inside. He toes off his boots, shrugs out of his outer shirt and goes to Marley’s room. She’s still asleep, mouth slack, face stained with the sticky residue of tears and blood. With an exhausted sigh, Wyatt drops down onto the bed beside her.

     “Marley,” he says quietly.

     She grumbles something that he can’t understand and rolls towards him, slinging an arm over his thigh and hanging on. Like she wants him to stay close to her.

     Wyatt puts his palm on her back, spreading his fingers across the t-shirt and feeling the warmth of her skin and the little knobs of her spine. “It’s okay,” he says to her. “You’re safe now.”

     The blank spot on the wall where Jessica’s picture had been draws his eye. He should put it back, Wyatt thinks suddenly. He got it wrong. It wasn’t about him. It was never hanging up there for _him_.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got about 1,000 words of this chapter done before the terrible malardy struck (sinusitis, I have sinusitis) so it's entirely possible that the 2nd half of the chapter is poorly edited and makes no sense. I'm never sure about the quality of my writing when I'm sick.
> 
> This update timed to coincide with horrible renewal news. Eg, no renewal. SIGH. I don't understand the issues here. Desperately hoping another network will, y'know, realise that this show is actually the best and pick it up??? (Hello, Netflix, you'll take Lucifer but not this? WTF guys). I suppose until someone swoops in to save the day, fanfic will be the best we can do :(

Marley goes to the rink. It’s what she does every time she’s mad, ever since Uncle Connor bought it for her fourteenth birthday. Some present. Hey, kid, here’s an entire ice rink from your slightly insane super-rich uncle.

     It’s crazy, how weird Marley’s life is and how little she ever questions it.

     She turns on the bare minimum of lights, sets the sound system up with one of her playlists, and then digs her skates out from the bottom of her bag and pulls them on.

     Marley’s not a figure skater. She can do a couple of easy spins, and a couple of easy jumps. Nothing serious. But what she loves about it isn’t the sport. It’s the speed, and the coldness of the air against her face, and the sound of her blades on the ice. Something about it helps her get her head on straight.

     Like everywhere else in the world, she wishes she could share it with her sister.

     When Marley finally gets off the ice it’s nearly one in the morning and she’s got two missed calls from Mom and a text from Jett.

     _I got in trouble. U owe me._

     She rolls her eyes. Jett takes stupid risks on his own anyway. It’s not like Marley _forced_ him to set her up in the capsule. Briefly, holding the phone, Marley considers calling one of the people she usually goes to when she’s unhappy. Denise, or Jiya. They’re her emotional support. Jackie and Mom are the ones Marley asks for advice, and everyone else in her life is just a bonus, really. She’s lucky. She’s surrounded by family.

     It’s early, though, and she doesn’t want to wake anyone up. In the end there’s only one person Marley wants to see anyway.

     She locks up the rink and hops into her car, turns off the GPS and the Bluetooth and switches off her phone. Once she’s double and triple-checked that anything which could possibly used to track her has been shut down, Marley starts the engine and heads south. It’s a little over an hour’s drive, and everyone will definitely be asleep by the time she arrives.

     Still, at least Marley will be there for breakfast.

 

     “Marley!”

     Marley opens her eyes. She’d crashed in her old bedroom last night so that she didn’t wake anyone up. Apparently her late arrival hasn’t been as much of a secret as she’d thought.

     “Hey,” she says, opening her arms wide. “Come here, kiddo.”

     Kaity crawls onto the bed and into Marley’s arms, snuggling in tight. She’s small for eleven, only half of Marley’s height and a skinny kid. Bony elbows and knees and gangly limbs.

     “I missed you so much,” Kaity says. “Why did you come home so late?”

     “I was out,” Marley says, and reminds herself suddenly and viscerally of her teenage years, when she’d had a harder time sneaking out than other sixteen-year-olds. Most of them didn’t live in a secret bunker. “What about you, what have you been up to?”

     “I finished Harry Potter!” Kaity announces, like she’s just been waiting to reveal that news. She wiggles in Marley’s arms. “Are you mad?”

     “What, that you didn’t listen to me when I said it was too scary?” Marley considers. “Nah.” She grins. “Did you like it?”

     “Loved it,” Kaity says.

     “Better than Percy Jackson?”

     “Uh, I dunno.”

     Marley brushes strands of Kaity’s hair away from her face. “Which one was your favourite?”

     “Number five.”

     “You like the Order, huh?”

     “They’re a big secret. Just like us!”

     Oof, and that hurts to hear. Marley uses both arms to pull Kaity in close, dark hair and big eyes and narrow little shoulders. She can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt her. She can’t imagine Kaity ever doing anything to warrant all this attention. The kid’s had assassins after her since before she was born, and she’s still just a ball of sunshine and light.

     “Missed you, Kaity.”

     “You should come home,” Kaity says. “To live, not to visit.”

     “I will. I promise, okay? I’ve just got one thing to sort out first.”

     “Secret thing?”

     “Secret thing,” Marley says.

     “Okay.” Kaity squirms out of Marley’s arms and bounces onto her knees on the bed. “Dad said to wake you up for breakfast. Are you hungry for eggs?”

     “No. Not hungry for eggs.”

     “How about French toast?”

     “Only if Emma makes it.”

     Kaity scrambles off the bed. “Okay! It’s a deal. I’ll go find her!” She’s gone in an instant, bare feet slapping the concrete, dressing gown flying out behind her like a cape.

     It doesn’t matter how many posters they stick on the walls down here, or how many toys they bring Kaity. It doesn’t even matter that all of the adults in their strange but functional family rotate spending time down here with her. This place is still a prison. Marley is going to get her sister _out_.  

 

     Emma is walking into the kitchen at the same time as Marley. She raises her eyebrows. “Forgot to brush your hair again, I see.”

     “Harsh,” Marley says.

     “Are you the reason that Kaity walked in on me showering ten minutes ago?”

     “Nope. I tried to teach her that privacy stuff years ago. Is it my fault that it never took?”

     “I suppose not,” Emma says. “French toast?”

     “Yes, please.”

     “Okay. You should go talk to your dad.”

     Marley grimaces. “Uh oh. Why?”

     “I heard a rumour you’ve been time travelling again. I think he heard it too.”

     Far out. “Shit,” Marley says.

     “Swear jar!” Kaity’s little voice pipes up behind her.

     Marley turns around. “How much is it now?”

     “A whole dollar. Don’t skimp.”

     “Okay, kiddo.” She ruffles Kaity’s hair and drops a kiss on her sister’s head before leaving the kitchen again. “I guess I’m going to find Dad.”

     “Good luck!” Kaity yells after her.

     Marley thinks she’s probably going to need it.

 

     Over the past few years, Marley has read about dozens of versions of herself in slightly alternate timelines. Connor, Emma and Jiya are the ones who have done the research, visited the timelines and collated the information, but Marley thinks she’s probably spent the most time reading it all.

     The oddest thing is that when she looks at the differences between the separate versions of herself, Marley can trace most of the changes back to when she was twelve years old. Decisions she made when she was barely pubescent ripple through into the future and change… everything. Her family. Her health. Her work. In one timeline, winning first prize in an essay competition puts Marley on track to become a librarian. In another, a trip to the beach a month before she turns thirteen sets her up to be a marine biologist. Ironically, it’s not that version of Marley who loses her leg to a shark attack. Instead it’s cello-playing Marley, who saw the Nutcracker ballet for her twelfth birthday and was orchestrally inspired - and then when she was eighteen went surfing at exactly the wrong time and place.

     Marley doesn’t like to think about how early her path seems to solidify. She’d felt like her choices were wide open well up until she was nineteen, twenty - even now. She knows what she _wants_ to do. She knows what she _loves_ doing. She still feels like she could change her mind, if she needed to. But in all of the timelines, she’s very, very young when she makes that first crucial choice.

     Kaity is eleven and Marley cannot stop thinking about how long it will be until Kaity makes her vital choice. Until the decisions ripple along Kaity’s life and trap her into a future that she won’t have any say in.

     In every version so far, Kaity is locked away, either in this bunker or one like it. Sometimes she’s with Rittenhouse. Sometimes she’s hidden in other countries. In one timeline - the timeline Emma comes from - she’s called Marian and she’d lived with Emma in Tibet for six years. That’s a weird one to comprehend. It’s the only reason they let Emma stay in the bunker, according to Mom. In Mom’s timeline, Emma tried to murder her. In Rufus’ timeline, Emma succeeded.

     They’re all coming at this from different angles. It’s one of the reasons Marley thinks they can’t see straight when it comes to Kaity. They’ve seen a hundred different versions already. Marley’s only ever seen it one way. Her timeline is linear, straight and narrow and the only one she remembers. There’s never been another way for her.

 

     Dad does his whole _I’m not mad, just disappointed_ routine and it exhausts Marley just as much as it used to when she would come home at one in the morning and he’d be waiting up for her, face tight with worry, eyes sharp with anger. He _is_ mad, even when he says he isn’t. Mad at her for putting herself in danger.

     Marley gets it, she does, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying.

     “At least I’m _trying,_ Dad.”

     “You think the rest of us aren’t trying?”

     “You’re not trying to get Kaity out of here,” Marley snaps.

     “No, because we’re busy trying to keep her _safe._ ”

     That’s the difference. Every time they have this argument, it boils down to the same old party line.

     Marley says, “I don’t want her to be _safe_ , I want her to have a _life._ ”

     “She can’t have a life if she’s dead,” Dad retorts.

     Marley rolls her eyes. “Wow, shocker.”

     Dad grits his teeth and sucks in a breath. “Okay,” he says. “Marley. I know you’re trying to help. I get it. But you can’t mess around with time travel. You can’t be going to the Launchpad and talking idiots like Jett into sending you off on some idiot mission that won’t change a thing. Do you get it? Telling me and Mom about the future won’t solve the problem. You have no training, no experience, and no understanding of how complicated this is. All you do is make things _worse._ ”

     Ouch. That one stings. Marley presses her lips together and wills herself not to let any of it show on her face. Her ears feel hot and her chest is tight with anger. For a second, Marley thinks she might scream at him. And she thinks Dad might scream back. They fight a lot more now than they ever did when Marley was a kid.

     She takes a deep breath and makes sure her voice is steady when she says, “I’m only here to see Kaity. I’m going to stay for breakfast, and spend some time with my sister, and then I’m going to go. All right?”

     “That’s not what I’m saying,” Dad says. “You don’t have to leave.”

     “No, I do,” Marley corrects. “I don’t want to be here. And maybe stay out of my way until I go.”

     Dad folds his arms across his chest. “What, so you’re going to have a temper tantrum now because I told it to you straight?”

     “Leave me alone, Dad.”

     “If you do stupid things, you better believe I’m going to talk to you about it,” he says. “You’re my kid, Marley. It’s my job to let you know when you’ve screwed up.”

     They’re not getting anywhere with this conversation. They’re just talking around in circles, repeating the same hurtful things over and over, and still Dad won’t bother asking for Marley’s opinion. He won’t ask about the research she’s done, or the scenarios she’s investigated, or anything at all.

     “Okay,” Marley says flatly. “I’m going to eat.”

     She turns her back on him and walks away.

 

     Kaity hangs on around Marley’s waist at the door, burying her head into Marley’s t-shirt.

     “I don’t want you to leave,” she says, muffled. “Why can’t you stay for a long time? Like you did for my birthday?”

     “I will,” Marley says. “Soon, I promise. Maybe for my birthday.”

     “Daddy says twenty-first is an important birthday and you might not want to spend all day with us.”

     “Yeah, but Daddy’s stupid,” Marley says.

     Kaity giggles. “I won’t tell him you said that.”

     “Hey,” Marley says. She strokes a hand through Kaity’s hair; lifts the little girl’s chin until their eyes meet. “I don’t wanna spend my birthday anywhere except with you, okay? You’re my favourite person.”

     “I know.” Kaity squeezes her arms around Marley tighter. “When will you come visit again?”

     “A couple of days. Is that okay?”

     “Yeah.”

     “I’ll bring you a present,” Marley says. “What do you want?”

     “I dunno.”

     “A surprise, then?”

     “Yeah. A really good one.”

     “Okay.” Marley stoops into the hug, pulling Kaity in close. Strands of hair flutter against her face when she breathes.

     “Where are you going to go first?” Kaity asks quietly.

     “The fire station, probably.”

     “Oh. That’s cool.”

     “It is pretty cool.”

     “Can you take a video of one of the fire trucks for me?”

     Marley laughs, straightening up and stepping back out of the hug. “Don’t you have enough of those?”

     “I really like the siren sounds,” Kaity says, grinning.

     “You’re crazy,” Marley says. She kisses Kaity’s cheek. “I love you so much.”

     “I love you even more.”

     “I love you most, so I win.”

     Kaity giggles. “Bye.”

     “See you soon.”

     Opening the bunker door hurts. Stepping outside hurts worse. She catches just a glimpse of Kaity’s pale little face on the other side before the door blocks her view. The bang of the door slamming shut is one of the most awful sounds Marley thinks she’s ever heard. The door is locked, Kaity is ‘safe’ inside, and Marley’s left alone in a damp, dark metal corridor, with a 200-stair climb between her and the sun.


	12. Chapter 12

     Lucy wakes up on Sunday morning to a text from Wyatt. Actually, it’s a series of texts, sent in quick succession, and the steady buzzing of her phone is what draws her out of sleep.

     _Help!_

_That sounds more urgent than I meant. It’s not urgent._

_It’s semi-urgent. Can you come to the birthday party?_

_ASAP?_

_Here’s the address._

     Lucy looks at the time and groans. It’s almost midday and she can’t believe that she’s slept so late. After spending all of yesterday chasing after the stupid Watergate tape, it’s not surprising that she’s tired. But this kind of stuff - sleeping all morning, not managing to run, or eat breakfast - she hates it.

     This used to be the normal after long nights spent up by Mom’s bedside. Lucy doesn’t like being reminded of that. For months, the smell of disinfectant had followed her everywhere. She can still hear the hoarse rattling of Mom’s breathing, or the bouts of bloody coughing which had left Lucy and Amy just as breathless with fright. 

     She texts Wyatt.

     _I’m on my way_.

    

     It’s some sort of a kids’ zone, when Lucy gets there. The kind of place full of slides and ball-pits and trampolines and foam-covered obstacle courses. It’s so loud that the sound drills right through Lucy’s ears and gives her an instant headache. A little boy runs past her and three more follow, pushing at her legs to get her out of the way. There are smashed fries and spilt drinks on the floor. Lucy steps over puddles and scans the room for Wyatt.

     She doesn’t even have to search hard. He finds her first, and calls out to her.

     “Lucy! Over here!”

     He’s sitting at one of the tables, and there are several women around him. They’re all completely unfamiliar to her.

     “Hi,” Lucy says when she gets over to them. She taps Wyatt’s shoulder lightly, wondering what he’d needed her for that was so _semi-urgent_.

     He reaches back and grasps her wrist, pulling her a step closer to him. “You’re finally here,” he says, but he’s addressing it to the others at the table, not to her. “I told them it wouldn’t take long.”

     Lucy says, “Um. Sorry.” She doesn’t know what he means by _finally_. And - have they been talking about her? Why?

     “This is Emily, and Casey, and…” Wyatt frowns. “Jill.”

     “Gillian,” the woman corrects. She leans over to shake Lucy’s hand. “Hello.”

     “Wyatt was just telling us about you meeting Marley for the first time,” the one called Casey explains. “How are you two getting on?”

     “Good?” Lucy says. “I think?”

     “Marley loves her,” Wyatt adds quickly.

     Lucy stares down at him. What the hell is going on? Wyatt won’t meet her eyes, but he squeezes her wrist. Telling her to calm down? To play along?

     “It is so hard doing it on your own,” Emily says. “I remember right after Jake left, I just had Jackson and Amy with me all the time. It was exhausting!”

     Lucy cringes when she hears the name. Wyatt squeezes her wrist again, like he knows. Maybe he does. Lucy takes a couple of deep breath. Her arm tingles with gooseflesh. She’s probably just cold. It has nothing to do with Wyatt’s thumb stroking back and forth over the soft skin beneath her palm.

     “I’m really lucky that Marley’s aunt lives so close,” Wyatt says. “She had Marley all yesterday, which was great, because Lucy and I were at work.”

     _In the 1970s_. He doesn’t say that, which Lucy thinks is probably a good idea. She shifts awkwardly from foot-to-foot. Why is she here?

     “Oh, so you work together?” Gillian asks. “Is that where you met?”

     “It’s so hard to meet people outside of work,” Casey says.

     A tiny girl wearing fairy wings and a tutu comes running up to their table, wailing. Wyatt takes advantage of the confusion to stand up and pull Lucy a couple of paces away.

     “Wyatt,” she hisses. “What is going on?”

     “Sorry, sorry. They were all being so weird and clingy. I don’t actually know who they _are_. I had to get their names off the RSVP email chain.”

     Suddenly it clicks and Lucy starts to laugh. “Oh my god. They’re hitting on you.”

     “Shut up,” Wyatt says.

     “You’re the hot single dad.”

     “Shut _up_. Stop laughing!”

     Lucy tries to restrain herself, but little snorts keep escaping. “You got me to come here and pretend to be your _girlfriend?_ ”

     “It was an accident,” Wyatt says. He sighs. “They kept talking about how hard it was to be on your own and I said, ‘Oh no, Lucy’s been a big help’ without thinking about it.”

     “You accidentally said I was your girlfriend?”

     “No, I accidentally said you were my co-parent.”

     Oh. _Oh_. And they have been, haven’t they? They’ve been doing this together. From the first moment, Wyatt had come straight to her for help. It’s a shared journey, Lucy realises, no matter which one of them Marley really belongs to.

     But she shouldn’t feel as flattered by it as she does. It’s Wyatt. His job is to take care of her. It doesn’t _mean_ anything and she needs to stop imagining that it does. It’s _Wyatt_. It doesn’t matter that he’s crazy hot, or that his smile makes Lucy want to smile back every single damn time. He’s the person she trusts most in the world right now. She’s never going to do anything to jeopardise that. Never.

     If he needs her to play a part then that’s what she’s going to do. And any _feelings_ she has aren’t even going to enter into it.

     “Okay,” Lucy says. “Let’s go and socialise.” She slides her hand down Wyatt’s arm and laces their fingers together. His hand is solid and warm wrapped around hers and she tries not to notice.

     He glances down. “Yeah?”

     “Just to get them off your case.”

     Wyatt smiles. His eyes are very blue. “Thanks.”

     “What are friends for?”

    

     Wyatt’s apartment door swings open before Lucy’s even had a chance to knock on it. With that kind of enthusiasm, she’s expecting Marley, but it’s Wyatt who stands there, looking a little sheepish.

     “I saw your car,” he says.

     “How’s the birthday girl?” Lucy steps into the entryway, closing the door behind her.

     Wyatt rolls his eyes. “She finally came down off the sugar high this afternoon. It was a nightmare.”

     “I told you there was too much party food,” Lucy says.

     “Yeah. Did you talk to Rufus?” he asks.

     “Uh huh.” Lucy stumbles over a plastic toy horse on the floor and stoops to pick it up. “They’ll meet us outside at half-past five.”

     “Okay,” Wyatt says. “That should give us plenty of time, right?”

     “I think so.”

     “Great. She’s in the bathroom. Got your stuff?”

     Lucy raises the black makeup bag in front of him. “Never leave home without it.”

     “For disguise purposes?”

     She grins. “What, you think this is my _real_ face?”

     “I knew it,” Wyatt says. “You’re secretly over thirty.”

     Lucy laughs. “You got me.”

     “Well,” he says, “you look great.”

     They’re standing too close. She’s aware of it suddenly. There isn’t enough space between them. She can feel the warmth of his skin and hear the quiet sounds of his breathing and smell whatever lingering cologne or body-wash or shampoo he’s used. Something subtle and familiar.

     Lucy steps back, fast. “Um,” she says. “I’ll go see Marley.”

     “Yeah. Good idea.”

     He’s blocking the hallway. Lucy has to turn sideways and make as though to squeeze past him, and then he jumps backwards like he’s been burnt. She tries not to think about it.

     Marley is wearing an orange jack-o-lantern shirt and a lacy black spider-web patterned skirt. She stands on her little blue stool in front of the bathroom sink, leaning forwards to peer into the mirror.

     “Hey,” Lucy says, rubbing Marley’s back. “Happy birthday.”

     “Can you see my scar?”

     “Not really.”

     “It doesn’t look cool since the stitches fell out,” Marley says, pouting. “I wanted a big scar for Halloween.”

     “That’s what we have this for,” Lucy says. She sets her make-up bag on the sink. “Have you changed your mind about your costume since we talked yesterday?”

     “Hm, nope.”

     “Okay. Let’s get started.”

 

     “Of course your kid wouldn’t be something _nice_ for Halloween,” Rufus complains. “What’s wrong with fairies? Or superheroes?”

     “She likes Supergirl,” Wyatt offers.

     “Right. But she chose to dress up as a _horrifying clown_ instead,” Rufus says, folding his arms over his chest, his eyes on Marley and Jiya.

     Lucy glances over at them too, grinning when she sees Marley’s painted face again. “I think it looks great,” she says. “Nice and scary for Halloween.”

     “I’m blaming you for this too,” Rufus tells her. “I’m going to have nightmares.”

     “What’s wrong with clowns?” Wyatt asks.

     “They’re creepy!”

     Jiya crouches in the carpark and turns around, and Marley clambers up on her back. They come laughing back to the group.

     “Are we going?” Marley asks.

     Rufus shudders. “So creepy,” he mutters, turns his back on them and starts walking away. Jiya grins and jogs a few steps to catch up to him, Marley clinging to her shoulders.

     “I think you did a good job,” Wyatt says, as he and Lucy follow. “The bloody tears are a bit intense.”

     “Those were her idea.”

     “Oh.”

     Lucy chews on her lips, debating whether or not to tell Wyatt what else Marley had said while they were getting ready. If this was a normal parent-child relationship, she thinks, she wouldn’t dare. It wouldn’t be her place. But this is anything but normal, and everything over the past week has just reinforced the idea in Lucy’s head that they’re in this together. All of them.

     “She said that she misses you.”

     “Who, Marley?”

     “Uh huh.”

     “She misses me?” Wyatt frowns. “What does that mean?”

     “I guess she thinks you’ve changed.”

     “ _I’ve_ changed.” He snorts. “More like the whole world’s changed around me.”

     “Yeah,” Lucy says, heartfelt. “Tell me about it.” She sighs heavily. “I’m so tired of all of this, Wyatt. All the secrets. We have so many damn secrets.”

     He bumps his shoulder into hers. “Your mom?”

     “Among other things.”

     “It’s okay, you know. Keeping secrets.”

     “It doesn’t feel okay,” Lucy says. “I feel like a terrible person. I’m keeping so much from… from everyone. I never used to do this. Even if I didn’t tell Mom, I’d always tell Amy. _Always_. Everything. Or - I don’t know, a friend from school, or a friend from work, or a boyfriend. I’ve never held everything in like this before.”

     Wyatt nods. “I get it. It’s lonely.”

     She blows out a breath. “Exactly.”

     “What are you keeping from me?” he asks.

     “Um.” Lucy stops and thinks about it. “Nothing,” she says, a little surprised at the admission.

     “So talk to me about the rest of it.”

     “I don’t want to just unload on you,” she protests.

     “Would it make you feel better if I went first?”

     He’s doing it again, Lucy realises, when she looks up at him. Exactly the same way he did in Germany. He opens up just a little bit and then she spills everything to him. It’s some sort of Army psych strategy, probably, but Lucy doesn’t even care. She needs to talk. And she wants to listen.

     “Okay,” she says. “You go first.”

     “I feel like I’m lost,” he says. “Since Jess died, I’ve just been drifting. And then there was this job, and this… _time_ machine. I thought it was a chance. I got fixated again, on her murder, on finding out every last tiny detail, just in case I could change it.” He shrugs. “Now there’s Marley and I don’t know what to do. If I save Jess, do I lose her? Is it worth never getting Jess back just to keep Marley?”

     Lucy shivers, tucking her arms around her chest. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

     “I get it now,” Wyatt says. He shrugs out of his jacket. “I love her. I do. She’s a great kid. But I can’t imagine doing this for the rest of my life.”

     “I’ll help,” Lucy says, and then flushes. “I mean, _we’ll_ help.” She waves her hand, encompassing Rufus and Jiya, walking ahead of them with the little girl. “All of us.”

     “Yeah, I know. But it’s not like you guys are going to be around for the next fifteen years.” He drops his jacket around Lucy’s shoulders. “I mean, realistically.”

     _Realistically_. Wyatt’s jacket is warm with leftover body heat and Lucy pulls it tight across her chest. Suddenly she doesn’t want to think about things realistically. She doesn’t want to imagine parting ways with Wyatt - not in the near future, not in the distant future, not ever. A wave of profound sadness washes over her at the thought and she drops her gaze to her feet. She wants him to stay. She wants to stay with him.

     She _wants_ him.

     It’s a realisation sharp enough to make Lucy stop walking, her heart pounding in the hollow of her throat. The longing sweeps through her so hard that it hurts.

     “Are you okay?” Wyatt asks.

     “Uh huh.” Her voice is higher-pitched than it should be.

     “Do you want to talk about your stuff now?”

     No, she really, really does not. She’d lied earlier, and she understands it now. She has a secret from Wyatt. A stupidly huge secret.

     “I want to talk,” she tells him, “but later. It’s Marley’s night tonight. And we’ve got plenty of time.”

     “Sure,” Wyatt says. “Looks like the birthday clown’s getting hungry, too.” He juts his chin towards Jiya, who is toting Marley up the steps of their first trick-or-treat house. “We’d better not get left behind or we won’t get any candy.” He grins at Lucy, that stupid blue-eyed square-jawed smirk that takes her breath away.

     She slides her arms through the sleeves of his coat and wishes, fiercely, that she didn’t feel anything at all. “Right,” she says, and her heart stutters when he looks at her. “Candy.”

 

     Marley chuckles every time someone tells her she’s scary. She belly-laughs hard when another child sees her and screams. When Marley gets scared she giggles and squeals and runs, dodging around the four adults. She swings around Lucy, hanging onto the belt loops of her jeans, and hides behind Wyatt. She holds Jiya’s hand a lot while they walk, chattering away so fast that Lucy can barely understand her.

     It’s properly dark by seven, but it takes another thirty minutes before Marley starts to get tired. She passes her candy sack over to Rufus and drags her feet while she walks. Eventually Wyatt gets tired of her scuffing her shoes and he hoists her up into his arms.

     Marley puts her head down on his shoulder and sighs. “Daddy?”

     “Yeah?”

     “I love you.”

     Wyatt rubs a hand up and down her back. “I love you too.”

     Lucy has to look away and swallow a sudden lump in her throat.

   

     Mom is standing in the hallway when Lucy opens the front door. “Where have you been?”

     “At work,” Lucy lies. “Why? It’s not late.” She frowns, bending to unzip her boots. “Were you waiting for me?”

     “It’s Halloween,” Mom says. “I don’t remember the last time you went out on Halloween.”

     Actually, neither does Lucy. Or - no, she does. Six years ago, to that shitty party where some drunk guy slobbered in her mouth and dropped a tray of ice cubes down her shirt. He’d thought it would be sexy. It wasn’t.

     Amy had laughed until she cried when Lucy got home and told her about it.

     “I didn’t go out, Mom, I had work.”

     “Sorry,” Mom says quietly. “I just thought you’d let me know if you weren’t going to make it home.” She draws herself up a little straighter and wraps her arms around herself. “I’m going to turn in early, I think.”

     There’s a bowl of candy by the front door. Lucy sees it when she turns around to hang up her coat. Only the dregs are left, but she’s struck by a sudden wave of guilt. Maybe they usually stay home together and wait for trick-or-treaters. They’d done that before, after Lucy moved back in. Before Mom got too sick for it.

     This calls for an emergency Snickers. Lucy digs it out of her purse and chases down the hall after her mom. “Hey!”

     Mom has stopped in the lounge, and she turns around, leaning against the door frame. “Yes?”

     “I brought you a Snickers.”

     Mom’s lips curve up, just slightly. She holds her hand out for it. “About time,” she says. “I was starting to think you’d never remember.”

     They settle on the couch together and Lucy draws her legs up under her, sitting on her feet. “Mom, can I ask you something?”

     “Always.”

     “My dad,” Lucy says. It hurts, to say the words and think about another man - not Dad. “Did you… did you love him?”

     Mom shakes her head. “No.”

     At least she’s honest, Lucy thinks. “Did he love me?”

     “I don’t know, Lucy. I’m sorry. You’ll have to ask him that.”

     “He didn’t tell you?”

     “No.”

     “Was he happy, when you told him about me?”

     Mom sighs. “No.”

     Lucy hesitates. “-Were you?”

     “Yes, Lucy. _Yes_. I wanted you from the second I knew you were there, do you understand? I’ve loved you forever. I will love you _forever_.”

     She stretches an arm out and pulls Lucy in, and Lucy allows herself to go, burying her face in Mom’s shoulder and sniffling. She’s not even sure why she’s so upset, but the tears well hot in her eyes and she curls her body up tightly.

     The questions she really wants to ask are about Dad. _Did he know I wasn’t his? Did he love me anyway? Would he have left me, if you’d told him?_

     She can’t ask. Mom doesn’t even know who Henry Wallace _is_.

     God, Lucy hopes he’d loved her. She’d loved him so much.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, it's been forever. I have great excuses. Are you ready? Ahem. I got sinusitis (AGAIN) and then a severe foot injury (still don't know what's up with that) and also I had to create an entire futsal team (it's indoor soccer) made up of little girls (I'm the coach) and then I had to learn how to coach futsal (steep learning curve, lots of fun). So I mean you can see why I was so slow in updating? ALSO I had to rewrite this chapter twice because I didn't like it. I'm not even a perfectionist, either. It was THAT BAD.  
> Third time's the charm, we hope?? Let me know how it is.

Wyatt has had too much to drink. He knows it. This isn’t the first time he’s used alcohol to wind down after a mission. It’s the long ones which take their toll on him. Being on alert twenty-four hours for days on end. He’s exhausted and the dip in his stress and adrenaline levels isn’t helping. The crash after the high.

     Besides, he’s got his phone burning a hole in his pocket, full of venomously angry texts from Jackie. He’d left on Tuesday morning and hadn’t come back until Saturday evening. She’s furious. _You couldn’t have called? Or texted? Or told me and Marley you were alive?_

     He’d called her as soon as they arrived home but she’d refused to speak to him. Just informed him that Marley was asleep in Jackie’s apartment, and Wyatt could wait until tomorrow to see her.

     There’s no way to explain that he couldn’t call them because he was stranded in the distant past. Wyatt can’t even imagine how fucking ridiculous he’d sound. _Sorry, but the French kept trying to kill us. Sorry, but we got captured by an ancient Native American tribe. Sorry, but we were lost in the massive fucking forest that’s Pittsburgh now._

     So he’s drinking. Even though he’s exhausted and hungry and he should be going home to eat and sleep. Rufus had left two hours ago, which was about when Lucy had stopped drinking. She’s still here, though, sitting in the booth across from Wyatt and watching him with her chin propped in her hand. They’re not talking, but the silence feels comfortable and safe. They don’t need to talk about the nightmare of the past few days. They lived it together.

     The minutes pass steadily. Wyatt nurses his whiskey and digs a fingernail into the grain of the wood tabletop. He keeps his eyes on Lucy.

     “It wasn’t your fault,” she says suddenly.

     “What?”

     “Getting stuck there. Any of it.”

     “I know.” It’s not blame that’s eating at Wyatt. He’d tell Lucy that, only he doesn’t think he can explain it properly.

     There’s silence again. Wyatt finishes his whiskey. Lucy tips her head sideways on her hand and watches him through heavy-lidded eyes. She looks tired. Wyatt feels exhausted. Somehow neither of them are quite ready to leave.

     At least, he thinks they aren’t, until Lucy clears her throat and gets to her feet and holds out a hand to him.

     Wyatt looks up at her. “What?” he asks.

     “It’s nearly two,” she says softly. “We need to go home.”

     “Not home,” Wyatt says, shaking his head. “Not yet.”

     “All right. But we shouldn’t stay here.”

     He takes her hand and lets her pull him up from the booth and lead him out of the bar.

     Both of their cars are in the parking lot. Wyatt had kind of forgotten that they’d driven here separately. He thinks maybe Lucy had, too, because her fingers tighten around his like she doesn’t want to let go.

     “I’ve had a lot to drink,” Wyatt says quietly.

     Lucy turns to stare at him like she knows exactly what he’s doing. “You probably shouldn’t drive,” she says.

     Wyatt shrugs. “I can always leave the truck here.”

     “Are you sure?”

     “One night won’t do any harm.”

     “Right,” Lucy murmurs. “I can drive you home.”

     “Not home yet,” Wyatt reminds her.

     “Okay. Not home,” Lucy says. “I think I know somewhere else we can go.”

     Lucy’s car is smaller than Wyatt is used to. He pushes the passenger seat back as far as it can go to make room for his legs. They pull out of the lot and Wyatt feels the keys of his truck in his jeans pocket. He thinks about how he doesn’t _really_ want to leave it in the parking lot of some bar in the early hours of the morning. It’s just that right now, for some reason, he can’t bring himself to care.

     Lights from the road sweep through the car; glowing yellows, reds, oranges, blues and greens. Wyatt rolls his window down and lets the cool breeze rush over him, ruffling his hair and raising gooseflesh on his bare arms. Whenever they stop at red lights, Lucy turns her face towards him and smiles like there’s some joke that only the two of them are in on.

     They don’t talk. There’s a fragile, soap-bubble feeling to the night, like maybe if they talk - if they start to wonder what they’re doing, or where they’re going, or why they’re not in their own cars going to their respective houses - then the whole thing could just burst and vanish. And Wyatt doesn’t want to be the one to break the spell.

     Lucy drives them up a hill to some lookout that Wyatt’s never seen before. He hasn’t really done much exploring around San Francisco - that was the sort of stuff he always did with Jess. Going hiking or driving on his own hasn’t even felt like a possibility yet. But wherever they are, it’s gorgeous. The lights of the city spread out beneath the winding road.

     The car bumps over gravel at the top of the hill and then onto grass. Lucy parks and turns the engine off and the silence rushes in through Wyatt’s half-open window. It’s practically deserted up here. The traffic at the bottom of the hill sounds so far away.

     Lucy gestures ahead of them. “The sea’s down there,” she says. “You can see all the way to the horizon. Just nothing but sea and sky.”

     It’s too dark to see anything outside the car right now and Wyatt doesn’t care. He reaches over and catches at Lucy’s hand, sliding his thumb over the smooth skin inside her wrist. “Thank you,” he says, “for bringing me here.”

     In the faint light cast by the car’s radio, Wyatt can see Lucy’s eyes. They’re wide and impossibly dark, pulling him in so that when he leans closer, it feels natural. His heart is thudding in his chest. It’s the good kind of adrenaline, this time. The kind that makes Wyatt feel breathless and light and more drunk than he really is.

     Lucy dips her head until their foreheads are almost touching. She whispers, “Wyatt.”

     Whatever she’s going to say next will break the spell. Wyatt knows it, suddenly and absolutely, and he can’t let it happen. He can’t let her do it. He’s not ready for this to end; for his real life to crash back in full of rules and responsibilities, fears that he can’t escape from and memories he wants to forget.

      So he leans in that tiny bit further - and Lucy leans too, that’s clear - but it’s Wyatt who closes the final gap and brushes his lips over hers.

     It’s only a quick, stinging contact. There and gone, and Wyatt pulls back when he hears Lucy’s sharp intake of breath. He lifts his hand to the side of her face carefully and pushes her hair back behind her ear. Her cheek is hot against his palm. Wyatt waits for her to say something or push him away. She doesn’t.

     She reaches a hand out for his shoulder and pulls him closer to her.

     This kiss is different. It’s desperate and needy and full of things that neither of them would ever say out loud. Wyatt’s eyes slam closed and his hand slides around to the back of Lucy’s neck. He drops his other one to her hip. She curls her fingers into a fist in his shirt and her tongue darts over his lips. Wyatt deepens the kiss eagerly, leaning further across the centre console. He needs to get closer; he wants her to come closer to him.

     Instead, she flattens both hands on his chest and pushes him back. Just a little. Just enough for their lips to separate. Wyatt opens his eyes. Hers are open, too, huge and deep. She’s breathing fast, chest rising and falling rapidly. Her lips are pressed tight together. She’s gorgeous. She’s _beautiful_. How had he never noticed before?

     He doesn’t want to say anything. He doesn’t want to take his eyes off her, either. He holds out his arms; a silent invitation.

     Lucy scrambles across the space between their two seats and spills into Wyatt’s lap. Her knees bracket his hips; her hands cradle his face. She ducks her head to kiss him again and her hair brushes his neck. She almost feels close enough.

     Wyatt holds onto her; one hand spread between her shoulder blades, another at the small of her back. He pulls her flush against him until she gasps into his mouth and her fingertips trace down his neck and settle into the hollow between his collarbones.. Wyatt can feel his heart there, thundering like crazy. He wonders if hers is doing the same.

     When he trails his lips down her jaw, Lucy tilts her head away to the side, leaving the long pale line of her throat exposed. Wyatt kisses until he finds her heartbeat, until he can feel the fluttering of life pulsing through her skin.

     It’s too much and not enough all at once. Lucy presses her hips down into his and Wyatt groans and fumbles at the hem of her shirt, untucking it from her pants until he can slide his hand underneath and find skin. He spreads his fingers across her ribs and Lucy sucks in a sharp breath and drops her forehead against his.

     He could have lost her today. Wyatt knows that. Or yesterday, or the day before - and he tries so damn hard to keep her and Rufus _safe_ but his job is getting harder. It’s only a matter of time before he makes a mistake. What happens then? When she’s dead and it’s his fault?

     Lucy whispers, “Wyatt.”

     Her chest rises and falls against his own with every breath. Wyatt pulls his hand out from under her shirt and scrubs it through his hair instead. Lucy moves back so that she’s sitting on his knees and not his lap.

     “I’m sorry,” Wyatt says.

     She shakes her head immediately. “Don’t be.”

     “That was stupid, I-”

     “Me, too,” she says. “I mean, I was stupid too. We can’t do this.”

     “Right,” Wyatt agrees. “We work together.”

     “Exactly.”

     There’s a long, careful moment where they just look at each other. Neither one is brave enough to move. Wyatt presses his hands down against the seat and doesn’t even let himself think about touching her again. Lucy shifts uneasily on his legs.

     “I’ll drive you home,” she offers.

     “Yeah,” Wyatt says. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

     She lifts up awkwardly and starts to climb back across into the driver’s seat. Wyatt puts a hand on the back of her knee to steady her. When Lucy ducks her head to avoid bumping it against the roof, her hair swings into his face. He breathes in the scent of her shampoo; something sweet and fruity, like apples, maybe, or peaches.

     “I’m sorry,” she says.

     Now they’ve both apologised. Funny, that Wyatt still doesn’t know what they’re saying sorry for. He knows, logically, that it can’t be wrong - the way he feels, that can’t be wrong. Like she’s something rare. Something precious that he doesn’t want to lose. He can’t imagine what any of these missions would’ve been like without Lucy. It’s just so easy to turn to her and ask for anything; for advice, for history lessons, for highschool _your mom_ jokes translated into French.

     Hell, look how quickly Wyatt had gone running to her about Marley. He’d barely handled that for a single day on his own. He doesn’t want to think about doing it without Lucy. Not any of it - the missions, Rittenhouse, Marley. He needs her. He _needs_ her.

     And that’s exactly why he has to stay away.

 

 

     Mom isn’t awake when Lucy gets home and she’s ridiculously grateful. She creeps up to her room feeling guilty and exhausted and miserable. This night has been an unmitigated disaster. She’d promised herself that she could keep her feelings for Wyatt locked up inside. She’d been so damn sure that she wouldn’t ruin whatever friendship they had between them.

     So she’d driven him up to a scenic lookout in the middle of the night and made out with him in the car like she was sixteen years old. What a brilliant fucking plan. An absolutely genius way to keep her feelings under wraps.

     Lucy groans as she shucks her clothes and pulls on a sleep shirt and a pair of soft shorts. She should have just driven him straight home - or, better yet, let him drive himself. She should have left the bar when Rufus did. She should have kept herself under _control_ and not melted the second that Wyatt looked at her with those eyes and leaned in that little bit closer. She should have-

     There’s a woman standing in the ensuite bathroom.

     The lights are turned off in there and Lucy can’t see much more than a silhouette, but she’s definitely real. She’s _real._ She’s _here,_ she’s _home._

     “Oh, my god,” Lucy says, rushing forwards. “Oh my god, Amy, oh my god.” She reaches out trembling hands for her sister and doesn’t even try to stop the tears which are welling up already.

     The woman turns around and Lucy freezes. She looks younger than Amy. The hair is wrong too; blond waves down to her shoulders. The face is unfamiliar. A straight nose, wide eyes and red lips curved up in an embarrassed sort of smile. Whoever this is, she’s not Lucy’s sister. She’s not supposed to be here.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, but I should have another two medium-length ones soon!  
> Who is ridiculously pumped for Christmas Timeless???

     Livvie is just shrugging off her turnout gear when Marley walks into the station. Her dark hair is pulled back into a long, curly ponytail and she grins when their eyes meet.

     “Hey, stranger.”

     “Hey yourself,” Marley returns, laughing. She lets Livvie pull her into a quick, tight hug. “You smell like smoke.”

     “Just a baby house fire. How’s you know who?”

     “She’s good. She finished Harry Potter. Oh, and she wants me to take a video of the truck sirens for her.”

     Livvie’s brilliant smile fades a little. “God, she needs to get out.”

     “Actually,” Marley says, “that’s why I’m here.”

     “Uh oh. What now?”

     Marley pretends to be offended. “Not _uh oh_ , excuse you.”

     Livvie leads the way off the floor and into the station proper. “Jett told me you convinced him to let you use the Capsule.”

     “Yeah,” Marley admits. “Twice.”

     “If that didn’t work, what makes you think I can help?” They turn the corner into the bunkroom and both of them settle on Livvie’s bed with its regulation grey blanket.

     “Because Denise has the nocs,” Marley says. She meets Livvie’s eyes. “And you can get them.”

     “Marls, you’re kidding, right?”

     “Nope.”

     Livvie pulls out her ponytail, shakes her hair free and starts to finger-comb it into a braid. “You want me to steal the inoculations from my mom?”

     “Yeah.”

     “So that you can take another illegal, unsupervised, highly dangerous trip in the Capsule?”

     “Pretty much.”

     “Uh huh, and why would I do this for you?”

     “You’re my best friend?” Marley wheedles.

     “That’s only because I was the only one with clearance to come visit you,” Livvie says.

     Marley shifts closer on the bed, bumping their legs together. “Um, no, it’s because you’re the greatest and I love you.”

     Livvie drops her head onto Marley’s shoulder. “Okay, okay,” she says. “I’ll see what I can do.”

     “Yes! Thank you! You’re amazing.”

     “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m just glad you asked me before you asked Mark.”

     Marley laughs. “He was gonna be my next stop.”

     Livvie rolls her eyes. “God, you’re a pest.”

     “But you love me anyway.”

     “I love you anyway,” Livvie repeats. “And you know she’s like my sister too, Marls. I’d do anything for her. We all would.”

     “I know.”

 

     Marley’s lucky. She’s always been lucky. Or, it feels that way. She’s got two parents who love her and so many surrogate aunts and uncles and cousins that it’s hard to keep track. She’s healthy and strong and smart. She’s got a job that pays the bills and a dream that she’s working towards. Plus, she’s cheated, and she knows how it ends. She goes to New York. Everything works out. It’s perfect.

     She just needs Kaity to be there with her. She needs it so badly that it hurts.

 

     “Okay,” Jett says, leaning across Marley and inserting his key into the Capsule’s safety lock. “You’re absolutely sure you’re ready for this?”

     “One hundred percent.”

     Jett sighs. “Just don’t screw up.” He twists the key and then turns his face towards Marley. Hunched into the tiny space of the Capsule, Jett’s face is close enough for her to see the tiny smattering of freckles over his brown cheeks and the lights of the console reflected in the black-brown of his eyes.

     Marley pulls back a little; as much as the seat will let her. “Yeah,” she says. “I won’t.”

     “Marls, I’m serious. This is changing your own past now. You know that, right? Anything could happen.”

     For a second, the full weight of what she’s about to do settles through Marley and sinks heavy as a stone into her chest. “What happens to me,” she asks, “if I stop existing?”

     “I don’t know.”

     “Will I come back and no one will know me? Or do I just…”

     “I don’t know.”

     “Okay,” Marley whispers. She feels gooseflesh rising on her arms and she shivers.

     “So I’m gonna ask you one more time. Are you ready for this?”

     It’s her _sister._ There isn’t a single thing Marley wouldn’t do.

     “Yeah, J,” she says. “I’m ready.”

    

     This time, when Marley spills out of the Capsule, she doesn’t puke. That’s a good start. Hopefully it means that her nocs have taken properly. Inoculations are only supposed to be for essential personnel. They shield against the time sickness. It means that Marley can exist now - as an adult - and somewhere else in 2016 San Francisco as a five-year-old girl at the same time.

     She doesn’t recognise the house in front of her but the address is right. Jett hasn’t let her down. Somewhere in here is Mom - the younger, softer version of Mom. This time, there’s no mission for Mom to complete. There aren’t any dangers around them - it’s not the Alamo. It’s just Marley and Mom. All they have to do is talk.

     Marley straightens her shoulders and steels herself up for the conversation. She’s been rehearsing exactly what she needs to say in her head for the whole week that it had taken Livvie to get her the nocs. It’s all been carefully planned out. There’s an answer for every question.

     Except the blond older woman who opens the front door isn’t Mom.

     Marley says, “Oh-” and then clamps her lips tight around the _shit_ which wants to follow.

     Carol Preston looks bemused and a little concerned. “Can I help you?” she asks.

     “No,” Marley says. “I’m sorry. Oh, wow. I’m really sorry.” Her heart thuds in her throat and she hugs her arms to her chest.

     “Are you all right?” Carol asks.

     “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m sorry.”

     “You’ve mentioned.” The older woman presses her lips together thoughtfully. “Is there someone I can call for you?”

     Marley forces herself to get it together. She lifts her chin and straightens her spine and plasters on a smile which feels sharp and fake. “I’ve got the wrong address again,” she says. “Don’t worry, I’m always getting lost. It’s, like, so embarrassing.”

     Carol says, “Hm.”

     “I’m gonna go,” Marley suggests, and she backs away a couple of steps. She keeps that smile on her face but she feels as though she’s going to be sick. “Sorry again. Bye!”

     “All right,” Carol says. “I hope you find who you’re looking for.”

     The fist in Marley’s chest doesn’t unclench until the front door is shut tight again. Oh god, she hadn’t expected that. She hadn’t prepared herself - hadn’t even imagined the possibility. Technically, this woman is Marley’s grandmother. They’re not related, and actually Marley’s not even sure if they’ve ever met. She certainly doesn’t remember it. There’s no blood between them, but Lucy is Mom. Always and forever. And this woman is family.

     Marley knows how Carol had died, too. Mom had told her that. They’d snuggled together on the couch one evening and both of them had cried a little. Marley can remember lacing her fingers through Mom’s. She can remember the warm yellow light of the living room blurry through tears. She remembers Dad coming in with hot chocolate and kisses for both of them.

     They’d told her that time travel was dangerous and they’d told her that it was a risk that they would never let her take. That was back when they still thought they’d be able to shut down the program for good.

     The memory and the shock combined are almost enough to make Marley give up. She feels guilty and miserable. She also feels determined as hell.

     She starts down the street, glancing left and right for some sort of a park, or a bar, or maybe some convenient bushes. Sneaking into the Preston house will be easier if she waits for dark.

 

     The bathroom is dim; only faint street light bleeds through the window. There are tears trickling down Mom’s cheeks but her face is scarily blank as she stares at Marley.

     “Who are you?”

     Not _Mom_ , Marley reminds herself. _Lucy._ “It’s okay,” she says. “We’re friends.”

     “What?”

     “In the future,” Marley says quickly. “I’m a time traveller too.”

     Lucy takes a fast step backwards. “You were at the Alamo,” she whispers. She brings her arms up to dash her sleeves over her face, wiping away her tears. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

     “Yeah,” Marley says. Now that the moment’s finally here, she’s so nervous that her hands feel clammy and sweaty. “I have to tell you something. It’s really important.”

     “Why are you here? In my house? How did you find me?”

     “It’s all in the past for me, remember? I know where you used to live.”

     Lucy tucks her arms in against her chest and shivers. “I know you,” she says. “Who _are_ you?”

     “Okay,” Marley says. Better just to blurt it all out, right? Not waste any more time. “I’m Marley.”

     “Marley.” Lucy’s voice is flat and her eyes are dark and impossible to read.

     Maybe there’s another Marley. “Marley Logan. My dad is-”

     “ _Marley_ ,” Lucy repeats. For a second, she looks like Mom, not some young, nervous stranger. But then she steps back again and says, “You can’t be. How can you be in twenty-sixteen? You’re already here. We can’t travel through a time we’ve already lived in.”

     “You can’t do that _yet_ ,” Marley says. “I promise, it’s me.”

     Lucy reaches backwards and flips on the light switch. It’s bright enough to make Marley squint. She tries to read Lucy’s face; to see any kind of recognition or familiarity or trust. There’s nothing there.

     “Why are you here?”

     “It’s about my sister. Like I told you before,” Marley says. “At the Alamo, I told you this was all for my sister.”

     Lucy sighs heavily. “Start from the beginning,” she says, and then she frowns and quickly adds, “Oh, hold on, wait. Let me call someone.”

     Shit, Marley thinks. “Not Dad,” she blurts. She just can’t deal with him right now - not the way he is in this time. Not after they’d fought when she was back home.

     “Dad,” Lucy repeats. She blinks, startled, and then she says, “I’m calling Rufus.”

     “Oh.”

     “Is that okay?”

     “Yeah. I guess so.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a short chapter that I'm honestly not entirely happy with and could definitely do a better job if I wrote it over, but that takes too long and I'm lazy. Hahaha LOL sorry.  
> It's good enough! Woo!  
> Coming up: hopefully at least one more chapter before we get our new Timeless "Christmas Special" (omg), a little bit more of Marley's future (I know it's not SUPER Lyatt but I haven't had any complaints about it yet so hopefully it's okay!) and then back to our regular slow-burn programming hurrah.

     It’s so late that it’s rolled around into early morning by the time Rufus gets there, looking bedraggled and annoyed and surprisingly _awake_ for 4AM. Lucy feels another stab of guilt for dragging him into this. It had been Jiya who’d answered Rufus’ phone, which had almost made things awkward enough for Lucy to just hang up.

     Instead, she’s called him over in the middle of the night because Wyatt’s daughter-from-the-future is here and Lucy doesn’t think she can handle it alone.

     The bedroom is dim with the low light from Lucy’s bedside lamp and they’re all talking in hushed whispers, because her mother is sleeping upstairs. They’re sitting on the floor, too. It feels like some sort of weird slumber party.

    “My sister’s name is Kaity. Kaitlyn Logan. She’s only eleven years old.”

     Lucy curls her knees up into her chest. It’s impossible to equate the graceful, self-possessed, serious young woman in front of her with the giggling, grinning, hyper five-year-old version of Marley. They can’t be the same. And yet there’s something familiar in those eyes - blue eyes, like Wyatt’s eyes - which makes Lucy want to believe her. To _trust_ her.

     “Okay, Kaity,” Rufus says. “What happened to her?”

     “Nothing. It’s about what she’s going to do,” Marley explains. “In the future - like, the actual future, not where I come from - she’s supposed to be this great leader. There’s gonna be a big war or something, I dunno. My parents won’t let me look at the files. But Kaity’s the only one who can stop it.”

     Rufus leans forward, his eyes bright. “Like Terminator,” he says. “And your sister’s John Connor.”

     Lucy almost rolls her eyes. She nearly makes some sort of comment, too. But her mind catches on the words _my parents_ and gets stuck. For the first time, she thinks about it. Marley has a little sister. Kaity _Logan_. Wyatt has another child. Marley has two parents.

     “You always say that,” Marley tells Rufus. “I don’t know what the big deal is, okay? I don’t know what happens in the war. But Rittenhouse has always wanted Kaity. _Always_. Like, what Emma told us was that they even tried to make Kaity exist by getting my parents together. They have this massive, complicated plan. Everything they do is about making ripples into the future.”

     Now even Rufus has noticed. “Your parents,” he says slowly. “Rittenhouse got them together?” He looks sideways at Lucy. She shrugs.

     “Yeah,” Marley says. “I mean not, like, _together_ together. They just made sure my parents met.”

     “Marley,” Lucy says gently, “you know in our time your mother is… she’s not here.”

     “ _Oh_ ,” Marley exclaims. “Right, no, I know. She’s my mom, but she’s not my _mom_. If that makes sense.”

     It doesn’t. It doesn’t make any sense and Lucy tries furiously to squash the pathetic whisper of hope which is rising inside her.

     “She’s your half-sister,” Rufus realises.

     “Yeah,” Marley says, and then she looks straight at Lucy.

     Lucy shakes her head. She can’t hear this right now. Not after what had happened between her and Wyatt tonight. “No,” she says. What if Marley says it's some other woman? Some random called Tracey or Bethany or Louise. Someone else who gets to have Wyatt and Marley and a new little girl and all the things that Lucy has been working so hard, since Halloween night, to pretend she doesn't want. Even to herself.

     But what if Marley says _it's her?_

     Marley reaches a hand out towards her. “It’s okay,” she says, palm upturned expectantly. “It all works out in the end. I can tell you how it happens.”

     Lucy’s heart is pounding in her throat. “I can’t.”

     Marley frowns. “What do you mean, you can’t?”

     “I can’t do this. I’m not ready, I-”

     The doorbell rings; a melodic chiming echoing through the house. The sound drives Lucy to her feet and she hurries out of her bedroom without finishing her sentence. They’ll wake up Mom, Lucy thinks. Who would ring a doorbell at this time of night anyway? She races down the stairs and yanks the front door open before the idiot can ring again-

     -and nearly runs straight into herself.

     That’s her. Standing on the front step, one hand tucked into the pocket of her jeans, wearing a too-large man’s sheepskin jacket. Her hair is longer but her face looks older. There are lines around her mouth and eyes. She’s not wearing any make-up. Her expression is sharp and serious.

     But she’s _Lucy_.

     “Hi,” she says. “I’m really sorry about this.”

     Her voice is completely unfamiliar. That’s the slap in the face which gets Lucy breathing again. This other-her doesn’t sound right at all. She doesn’t even sound like Lucy does on recordings.

     “You’re from the future,” Lucy says dumbly.

     “That’s right,” Other-Lucy agrees. “Is Marley upstairs? My Marley, I mean.”

     Slowly, Lucy nods. “How can you both be here?”

     “It’s a long story. You’ll find out,” the Other-Lucy says. Even though her face is severe, her eyes are full of warmth and humour and there’s something incredibly comforting about it. This version of Lucy - she knows it all. She’s seen it all. This, for her, is history.

      “Is it going to be okay?” Lucy whispers. She's not even sure what she's asking about.

     Other-Lucy smiles. “Yes,” she says. “You don't need to worry so much.” Then she leans sideways to look past Lucy’s shoulder and her smile vanishes. “Marley Grace.”

     Lucy twists to see Marley coming down the stairs, looking suddenly very young and very, very guilty.

     “I’m sorry!” she exclaims. “I had to, I’m sorry, I had to tell them. I couldn’t just sit at home and wait around!”

     “That’s enough,” Other-Lucy snaps. “Lucy? What’s she told you?”

     “Um,” Lucy says. “Nothing, really. Just that she has a younger sister.”

     “Forget it,” the Other-Lucy orders. “Everything she said, forget it. Marley, come on. We’re going home.”

     Marley plods heavily down the last few stairs. She pauses, for a moment, next to Lucy and says, “I’m sorry for breaking into your house.”

     “Oh. Uh, that’s okay.”

     “Thanks,” Marley says. Her arms come up and wrap around Lucy’s shoulders and then she hisses into Lucy’s ear, “Flee.”

     “What?” Lucy murmurs back.

     Marley whispers it, her words dropping as heavy as lead. _“You can’t trust him.”_


End file.
